


Heartbeat

by nerdhourariel



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Romantic Comedy, Beauty and the Beast Elements, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Smut, F/M, Gen, M/M, Rey is a wrestling fan, Romantic Comedy, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, WWE references abound
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-13
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:47:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 31,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21775456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdhourariel/pseuds/nerdhourariel
Summary: After being cursed to live forever until he finds true love Ben Solo now going by Kylo Ren, Executive of First Order Financing, meets Rey, an Uber driver, one morning after a night out. When she accidentally witnesses him get hit by a bus and walk away unscathed, she vows to help him break the curse by finding his true love. (AKA it's a Romantic Comedy Reylo stylez!)---“Aren’t Uber drivers supposed to actually listen to their passengers?”“Well you’re not an official passenger and you’re not rating me so I can pretty much do whatever I want.” She smirked and he rolled his eyes, he was starting to think the subway may have actually been a better option. “So you want to talk about your one night stand?”“How do you know it was a one night stand?” Kylo argued, “Also bold of you to judge me when you took a stranger into your car because he offered you five hundred dollars.”“You stood in front of my car.”“You could have run me over.” (Chapter One)
Relationships: Finn/Rose Tico, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 64
Kudos: 183





	1. Prologue

**Prologue:**

_ New York, 1921 _

He woke up before her and dressed quietly, trying not to wake her. He’d see her again, around the neighborhood, waiting outside his father’s factory. She’d call on him again. They always did.

He left out the door, shutting it behind him. He had met her in the Underground Bar. They had drank watered down whiskey he had helped deliver for his boss and she had taken him home.

It was easy. Always so easy. He had power, they always knew it. They knew his boss. They knew him.

He checked the pocket watch he always carried with him. His father’s watch. He hadn’t spoken to the man in nearly six years. His mother tried. His father had given up. He still liked the watch. 

He brushed his hair back with his hands and placed the hat on his head as he walked out of the brick building. He had meetings to get to. Deals to help make. People to visit and talk to with words and fists. 

He stopped when he was face to face with her.

Bazine.

She had a dark energy around her. An anger. He should have been scared, should have shrunk back and apologized, but she knew who he was. She knew he worked for Snoke, the man destined to be Governor. The man who was going to run the city in the public’s eye even if he already ran it from the shadows.

He stood tall. Unashamed. Unapologetic. 

It made her angrier.

“Excuse me, Bazine.” He tried to walk away. She stood in his way.

“Are you not going to say anything?” She argued, the tears staring in her dark eyes.

“Why should I? You knew what this was when we started out, you knew what I was. Get over it.” He shrugged and tried to leave again.

Her hand grabbed his shoulder, rooting him to the spot. The wind began to pick up around them. The clouds falling over the sky.

A storm rolling in.

“What are you doing?”

“You lied to me. You told me you loved me and you didn’t mean it. You have to pay for that. They have to pay for making you this.”

“Bazine,” he had the decency to be scared now. Her smile didn’t help things.

“Benjamin Solo.”

“That’s not my name.”

“Not anymore,” her voice took on an edge, vibrating through him. The wind picked up. Her voice kept that edge, ripping him down to the core.

“Until you feel it, until you mean it, until that crack in your heart heals, you will never be happy, you will never rest, you will always be a creature of shadow and pain. There will only be Kylo Ren until true love brings Benjamin Solo back to life.”

His knees buckled and he dropped to the ground before Bazine. Her eyes bore into him as she spoke. 

She pulled the pocket watch from where it had rested in the breast pocket of his unbuttoned vest. He watched her open it as the breath from his lungs grew shallow, his heart beat picking up speed.

She turned it towards him and opened the face. He watched the hands spin and spin, his heart beating in time with them. The beats grew louder and louder, the blood rushing in his ears as the hands kept spinning and spinning.

The face cracked and the hands froze.

His heart stopped beating.

And Bazine disappeared.

He picked up the pocket watch from the ground, stared at the frozen, cracked, face. His other hand checked for a pulse that no longer existed and he took a panicked breath.

His heart had stopped, yet he lived on.

And on.

And on.

Through the years, never aging, never dying, the crack in his heart doing just as Bazine said. Kylo Ren would never be Benjamin Solo until he loved and had his love returned.


	2. Of Buses, Ubers, and Meet Cutes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Modern Day NYC, Kylo takes an Uber from Queens, we get the trademark meet cute, and then he gets hit by a bus - literally.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This thing is super unbeta'd but I dig RomComs and I dig this pairing and I'm stoked for episode nine so have fun with these run ons the size of Gilmore Girls dialogue.

**Chapter One - “Of Buses, Ubers, and Meet Cutes”**

_ New York, Present Day _

First Order Financial, started from Snoke Fund Management, named after its founder and a former Governor, was the primary banking and hedge fund provider for all of the city’s elite. It held the best and most lavish parties for its clients, and boasted talented and ruthless executives who made investors and boards quake when they walked into a room.

Or so it said on their mission statement.

Kylo Ren didn’t feel very ruthless at the moment.

He felt old.

He felt tired.

He felt cursed.

He was cursed, but tonight he really felt it. The party was meant to honor him. His promotion to executive. The youngest executive in First Order Financial, although the young part wasn’t really true, neither was the time it said he had been working for the company.

He had helped found First Order Financial back in it’s early days as Snoke Fund Management. But he hadn’t been very visible back then, the name Ben Solo dying in 1921, his son Benjamin Jr taking his place, and now him, Benjamin III. 

Nevermind they were all the same man. Nevermind that he went by Kylo Ren and no one questioned that even if the nameplate printed on his desk and door said Benjamin Solo III. 

He swallowed his whiskey down as the party around him went on. He’d made his fake speech about how honored he was. He’d smiled as he was congratulated over and over again, some of those platitudes actually genuine. But he was done now. 

Hux and Phasma, two of First Order Financial’s best, met him at the bar. Hux carried a box with him and Kylo knew what it meant. The honorary watch. The business cards. They’d done it for Armitage a year before. 

Kylo wasn’t the biggest fan of Hux, the man was too ambitious for his own good, ambitious in a way that reminded him of himself, but he didn’t hate him. He worked hard. He’d earned his way. Kylo just knew Armitage would step on him if it meant getting up the ladder faster.

Phasma wasn’t any better, but she wasn’t worse. She would at least look him in the eye when she stepped on him.

There was an honor in that at least. Hux, red hair slicked back, fresh Armani suit buttoned and his own watch on to show his standing, took the seat closest to Kylo. He passed the box without so much as a hello.

“It’s time, no pun intended.” He picked up a glass of champagne, his accent enunciating each word.

Kylo opened the box as Phasma ordered her own whiskey from the bar.

“The business cards are behind it,” she said, “Black with red lettering.”

Kylo picked up one of the business cards, ignoring the expensive watch completely. He wouldn’t wear it, he had two others tossed aside somewhere from before. Besides, the broken pocket watch was the only thing he needed to tell time, or his lack thereof. 

Time was meaningless when you couldn’t move forward. 

“These make me look like a villain,” the deep timbre of his voice spoke out. He flipped the heavy card in his hand.

“They make you look distinguished,” Phasma argued. “I have ones like that.”

“Yours are silver,” Hux argued.

“They’re still distinguished.” She took a sip of her whiskey. Hux grimaced.

“This is a champagne party not a whiskey grieving hour, why can’t you two just fit in with that?” He rolled his eyes and sipped his champagne.

“Because we’re whiskey people not champagne people,” Phasma argued. “Although Kylo here looks like he’s in a grieving hour.” 

“I don’t often agree with Phasma but she’s right, what’s wrong with you? You’ve just been given the keys to the kingdom, the height of your career, the youngest to do so, rich, in charge, you could have any woman here…”

“Maybe I just want to marinate on my achievements over a whiskey by myself,” Kylo said, forcing a wry smile as he took another sip of his whiskey.

“Are you depressed?” Phasma asked, Hux sitting up a little, for all their faults and their desire to achieve, they actually looked concerned. It would warm Kylo’s heart if he had one to warm, if it wasn’t dead and broken in his chest and frozen there.

“No. I’m perfectly content. Watch.” And to illustrate his point further, he picked the first woman he saw and found modestly attractive, whispered one thing in her ear and she was swooning. They were out the door not a moment later.

“How does he do that?” Hux asked.

“I don’t know but I’d certainly like to find out.” Hux gave Phasma a look, she scoffed, “Not with him. To use for myself.”

“Like you have trouble getting women,” Hux joked, there had been many a time when they had been in college together that he’d been the third wheel not her.

“Some find me intimidating. Shocking as that may be.” She took another drink of her whiskey, now turning into the sad whiskey drunk they had thought Kylo to be.

\---

He lay next to the woman from the party. He hadn’t learned her name, he rarely did in these situations. He knew she didn’t work for First Order. She had been a guest of someone who did work there, someone who she had told him time and time again she was not dating. He wouldn’t have cared even if she had been dating them.

This wasn’t about the sex. This wasn’t even about proving to Hux and Phasma that he was definitely not depressed, not at all, definitely okay, the same Kylo Ren who had made investors cry over the years. Years they weren’t aware of but years to him all the same.

He checked his heart, he checked the pocket watch on the bedside table next to him.

Nothing. Still frozen.

Of course he knew a one night stand wasn’t going to fix the situation but hey maybe true love started as anonymous sex and ended up in happy ever after.

He could practically hear Bazine’s laughter all the way from 1921. 

It was nearing his birthday, well, his death day really. He knew what would come in the next week. A note, a rose, another year ticking by in his cursed existence. 

He sighed, the sunlight starting to trickle in through the bedroom window of the woman’s apartment. It was time to go.

He picked up his pocket watch, knowing he’d have a full day ahead of him. Celebratory party the night before, back to work the next day, that was the First Order way. And he had a job to get to, or rather his own apartment to get to, a new suit to put on and a shower ahead of him. 

He checked his phone to find several messages regarding meetings and clientele and one e-mail regarding assistants that he deleted without reading.

He stepped out onto the city street and took a breath of the Spring air. The flowers were blooming, coming back to life from their sleep during the Winter. But he was always stuck in Winter, never blooming, never coming back.

He removed the watch box from the pocket of his coat and tossed it to a Homeless man sitting beside the building.

“Sell it,” he ordered and picked up his phone to call his driver.

His driver, Poe, had answered but had also reminded Kylo or “Kyle Ron” as he liked to say when he was feeling annoyed, that it was his day off and he wasn’t driving to Queens to get him.

Poe hated the name Kylo Ren, he thought it was very very stupid and refused to call him it, using ‘Sir’ if he was in a good mood and occasionally ‘My Guy,’ if necessary, Kylo hadn’t fired him and wouldn’t, not until he could find better driver which was a tall ask. He’d never met anyone who could navigate the Van Wyck or the Cross Bronx expressway the way Poe could.

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Take an Uber, Kyle,” Poe stated in a tired voice through the phone before hanging up.

Kylo muttered about days off and couldn’t quite remember why he had granted the day off request in the first place. He remembered vaguely it being some sort of Christening but he was too pissed off to really think it through. 

An Uber? Really? He didn’t take Ubers. He didn’t take the Subway. He barely rode in a Taxi.

He glanced at his phone and noticed the red that was his dying battery. 

Shit.

At this rate he’d have to walk back to Manhattan. Or take the Subway for the first time in his very long life.

Somehow that felt worse than the thought of the Uber. 

\---

In a small apartment across the street from the misfortunes of a rich and cursed man, Rey sat at the counter of the kitchen/living room combo and ate her Fruit Loops in silence.

Silence that was broken by her roommate, Finn, exiting his bedroom in a flurry of activity.

“Late?” Rey asked, her mouth still full of sugary cereal. 

Finn gave some audible response that was half actual words and more high shrieking noises, all confirming that he was, in fact, late for his very important interview that would hopefully get him away from working retail. She hoped he got the job, even if he was late. He needed something stable where customers didn’t yell at him over stupid things.

She had known Finn for half her life. They’d ended up in the same foster home and had immediately connected on some, we’ve both been through some sad shit, level. They didn’t lose touch, even when the homes changed, they still wrote, they called, they moved to New York together.

Finn had met Rose working at the chain store, ‘Trooper,’ a couple blocks away from their Queens apartment. It was one of those all around department stores that sold everything from food to clothing and electronics. Rose worked in electronics. Finn worked in maintenance where he largely had to deal with fixing displays, most of which were in electronics. They’d hit it off. 

Rose had quit nearly a year ago, finding a job in the IT department at New Republic Studios, a production company located in Brooklyn, a place where Finn had an interview that he was running late for.

“Subway’s gonna be Hell,” he muttered as he ran from the bathroom, toothbrush still in his mouth. Rey could hear the water still running. He ran back to shut it off, “Why didn’t the alarm go off?”

He ran back into his room, the door shutting. Rey heard a few things fall, heard Finn curse a few times, then he ran back out, fully dressed, tying his shoes as she threw him his jacket from the counter. 

“Good luck,” she said, bringing her now empty bowl to the filled sink. At nearly 25, Rey had mastered the art of stacking the dishes in a way that meant she would never be the one to hit the, it’s over the top time to do the dishes line. A well honored rule in the Finn-Rey household.

Finn grabbed his keys, gave Rey a thumbs up and was out the door a second later.

Rose walked out of Finn’s room twenty minutes after that, dressed for work, her badge swinging from the fob on her hip.

“He left,” Rey said, grabbing a Red Bull from the fridge. “He was late.” 

“Yeah, he fell on me trying to find the socks that matched his shirt.” Rey laughed at the smaller woman. “There an extra one in there?” Rose asked as Rey grabbed another Red Bull from the fridge and handed it over.

“Last one,” Rey stated, “That means…”

“Last one buys,” Rose said with a smile, cracking it open. “I’m going to take Finn out to lunch after his interview, if you want to join us, I’m buying.”

Rey shook her head, this was going to be an important day for Finn, very important whether Rose knew or not, “Not that I like to turn down a free meal but I’ve got to make some cash if we want to make rent.” Rey opened the Uber app on her phone, signing in to the driver side of things, ready to accept the first fare that came through.

Most people, tourists, were scared of driving around the city, Rey revelled in it. She loved working her way through traffic, getting through lights, getting to the airport in less time than the GPS told her it would take. Sure, most of her passengers were drunk and didn’t fully enjoy the ride and most of it was spent with Rey praying they didn’t puke in her backseat, but she still got to drive, still got to keep her head, and most of the time she didn’t have to talk to anyone. 

“Rey, you know, if you want Skywalker Studios needs equipment drivers…”

“Rose, thank you, but no thank you. I can make my own way. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got places to be, people to drive around, NXT to watch later.” Rey zipped up her Becky Lynch sweatshirt and headed for the door, keys, phone, and Red Bull in hand.

“It’s so weird to me that you like that wrestling stuff.”

“Do I judge you for liking Finn?” Rose gave Rey a look, “Exactly.” 

“Rey,” Rose said in that warning and sympathetic way that made Rey stop in her tracks. She knew what this meant, advice was coming, unwanted and usually correct advice. “I just...Finn and I are making plans and I don’t want you to be stuck if we…”

“Move out?” Rey finished. She felt a pain in her chest at the thought, pain at losing her best friend, pain at losing her family and being alone, even if he’d never let it happen, it would happen. Finn and Rose were making plans. They were probably making marriage plans and baby plans and future plans. Plans she didn’t make for herself because she was used to just getting through the day, she didn’t look towards the future, had never done that. She didn’t have a response, wouldn’t have one that would satisfy Rose or even herself, but she also knew there wasn’t really anything she could do or say that would stop life from happening around her...except to aggressively avoid talking or thinking about it at all costs.

Rose nodded and waited for Rey to continue with a conversation she was vehemently not going to have. 

Rey put on her best, ‘I’m a totally functioning adult who is perfectly fine,’ smile that did little to convince Rose and instead of contributing anything relevant, said, “I have to go. Tell Finn I hope his interview went well.” 

And she left Rose to face the day and definitely not think about the fact that Finn and Rose were going to get a house somewhere in the suburbs, have a bunch of kids, and forget all about their weird friend in the city. The rational part of her brain knew that wouldn’t happen. Finn would call her every day even if he lived in the suburbs. They’d probably build her a room above the garage.

But the irrational part of her brain, the emotional part she tried to push down because it wasn’t practical and had never helped her when she was in foster care and wouldn’t help her now, felt the anxiety taking over. She was going to be alone. She wouldn’t be able to pay the rent on her own, which was the root of what Rose was getting at, she needed a stable job of her own. Rey’s health insurance was minimal and would legitimately only cover life threatening injuries. She hadn’t been to the dentist in like three years. She was barely an adult, she was still that too small kid who was too good at finding places to hide and used it to her advantage to escape any situation whether it was bad or just mildly uncomfortable, which now included her feelings.

She was so lost in her thoughts she completely missed the very well dressed, too well dressed, tall dude standing on the sidewalk in front of her car and bumped right into him. He didn’t move, like at all, it felt like hitting a wall. 

Rey jumped back, the broad back of the guy turned around, his dark eyes staring down at her. For a brief moment Rey tried to recall the self-defense class she had gone to with Rose but only remembered how to throw a punch - well she knew that before the self-defense class, it was a solid go to. 

She balled her fists, ready to defend when the guy said, “You’re an Uber driver,” as he pointed to the sticker on the side of her car. Kylo had been pacing the street, trying to figure out what he was going to do as his phone had died on him and he’d been seriously contemplating the subway.

He had almost thrown up at the thought, but he was getting desperate. And then he had seen a guy rush out of his apartment across the street in a flurry and then he’d seen the car and the tell tale sticker on the side. 

And even if the car wasn’t the luxury he was used to, the Honda Civic nowhere near the town car standards he had. It was better than the subway. 

And then the driver who he found too short and dressed like she was ready to beg for money, had literally run into him and his path was clear. She was going to drive him home and he wouldn’t take no for an answer.

She nodded in response to his question, confirming she was in fact the driver. Rey kept her fist ready to go. She was pretty sure she could take out that big nose of his. Maybe someone already had. 

He noticed the fist, he didn’t care, he ordered, “Great. Take me to Manhattan, I’ll give you the address in the car.” He eyed her Honda Civic with a mildly disgusted expression, but tried to mask it. She noticed it anyway. She was already in a steadily falling mood, now was not the time to piss her off. 

“Yeah, I’m not taking you anywhere. You gotta use the app, Buddy.” She brushed past him, going around to the driver’s side, aggressively ignoring the fact that he was definitely folllowing close behind.

“I don’t have the app, my phone died, I can’t download it,” he argued, he was not going to take the subway, he couldn’t take the subway.

She shrugged, not her problem, “Don’t you done up types usually have a driver? And also avoid Queens?”

“My driver has the day off.”

“Maybe you should have thought of that before your One Night Stand.” Rey shrugged and opened her door and got in. Kylo huffed, how did she know it was a one night stand? Maybe he had a girlfriend in Queens? What did she know about him? 

Frustrated, he had no choice, he was not going to take the subway, she was going to drive him. So he stood in front of her car, staring her down.

She stared right back and Kylo felt the first thing like fear in his long life. She rolled down the window and yelled, “Dude, you’ve got like ten seconds before I run you over and I promise you I won’t feel bad about it because you’re probably a serial killer.”

There was no mistaking the look in her eyes, she’d do it and even if he couldn’t die, he didn’t feel like getting hit by a car today. So he did the only thing that would convince her that he was not a serial killer and that if she drove him, it would be worth her while. The way she was dressed, she could use the extra money. 

He removed a fine leather wallet from his coat and held up two hundreds. “I’ve got five hundred in my wallet, I’ll give you two now and when you drop me off at my place in Manhattan, you’ll get the rest. And if you feel at all uncomfortable during the ride, drop me off wherever and keep the two hundred.” He took out one of the new business cards and walked around to the open driver’s side window. 

Rey was fixated on the cash still in his hands. Five hundred bucks to drive him into Manhattan? Was he serious? A part of her thought that five hundred dollars would be a nice ‘see I can make it just fine without you guys,’ point for Rose to lay off of her and prove not only to them but to Rey that she wasn’t that sad kid still searching for a home and a family, she was perfectly capable and fine on her own. 

But Rey also thought this dude was crazy and probably murdered desperate people searching for a quick way to make some money and she’d never actually see that five hundred dollars but probably the inside of this guy’s weird basement.

And then he held out a very expensive looking, very nice, business card that was thick in her hands and she stupidly took it and read it and tried to ignore the fact that this felt straight out of American Psycho. 

“What kind of name is Kylo Ren?” She looked from the lettering to him, “You sound like a Disney villain. This looks like the kind of card a Disney villain would carry. Or a serial killer.” 

“I’m not a serial killer. Or a villain.”

“That’s something a serial killer or a villain would say. And this card is not convincing.”

“It has my number and where I work. I promise you I won’t kill you and look,” he held up the remaining three hundred dollars in his wallet, “I’ll give you all of the money now.” And he handed her the money like it didn’t mean anything.

Kylo looked at Rey, pleading and she felt a bit of sympathy for the dumb, rich, guy. She thought about the money, she wouldn’t make anywhere near that today, and she thought about paying the rent, paying for food, Finn and Rose and their plans and she relented.

“Get in. But if you’re going to kill me, do me a solid and make it quick.” She plugged in her phone and pulled up the GPS. “What’s the address, Mr. Villain?” 

The ride was longer than Kylo expected it to be. His too large frame was crammed into the backseat of the Civic and he was growing more and more uncomfortable. He shifted his dead phone back and forth in his hands, fidgeting as the silence wore on. 

He couldn’t take it anymore.

“Can you put the radio on or something?”

She turned up the volume and some pop song blared out of it. He shook his head, “No.” 

She turned down the music, “Something wrong?” 

“I hate that song,” he stated.

“Okay,” she turned the song back up and he shook his head again. 

“Can you turn it off?” 

She shut the radio off, “I thought you wanted the music on.”

“Aren’t Uber drivers supposed to actually listen to their passengers?”

“Well you’re not an official passenger and you’re not rating me so I can pretty much do whatever I want.” She smirked and he rolled his eyes, he was starting to think the subway may have actually been a better option. “So you want to talk about your one night stand?”

“How do you know it was a one night stand?” Kylo argued, “Also bold of you to judge me when you took a stranger into your car because he offered you five hundred dollars.”

“You stood in front of my car.”

“You could have run me over.”

A moment passed in silence then Kylo answered, “It went as well as they always do. Good times had by all, ten out of ten would recommend me to a friend.”

“Gross,” Rey said, “And look, rich guy like you, stuck in Queens, you weren’t out here because you have a long term relationship, otherwise, your driver, day off or not, would have been waiting, or you would have had a backup that wasn’t me, Rey, the Uber driver who definitely was going to hit you with her car.” 

He smirked, “That’s a nice name.”

“Better than yours.”

He laughed, a small huff of laughter, but still, a laugh all the same. He couldn’t remember the last time he had genuinely laughed. Rey smiled, the first of the morning and she glanced in her rearview mirror at the goofy face in her backseat. 

He may have been dressed all in black, he may have had a perpetual angry shadow around him, but a part of her didn’t find him unattractive. He ran a hand through his dark hair, it curled at the ends past his ears. She heard a car honk next to her and she straightened out the car. She hoped the dude in the backseat didn’t notice she had drifted.

Eyes on the road, Rey, not the hair behind you. He could still be a serial killer. 

A sadness loomed around Kylo as he took a breath, “I didn’t ask her name.” He felt the confession emerge from him like a sad truth, “I never do.”

He looked at her from the backseat and their eyes met in the mirror. A moment, silent and that seemed to stretch on, passed between them. Rey looked back onto the road. 

“Dude I’m not having sex with you.”

And the moment was over. 

“That’s not...what? How did you get that from...what?!”

They arrived at his apartment ten minutes after that. Rey parked across the street from his building. 

“You know I live on the other side, right?” Kylo asked, frustrated, leaning over from the backseat, his broad shoulders stopping him from actually pushing through over the console.

“Well, it’s a one way and you can’t give me five stars and I have a date with my couch and the WWE network.” Rey turned to look at him, giving him that same snarky smirk he was starting to associate with her, even if he had just met her it seemed wholly to belong to her and her personality.

He huffed and Rey, not really knowing him either, felt that was something he probably did a lot, and she’d laugh at it if she knew him better. She’d probably make fun of it, mock the huffy childlike frustrated sigh. But she didn’t know him and there was some kind of sadness around him she couldn’t quite place.

A sadness she felt too. 

“Well, good luck with whatever you’ve got going on, Uber driver, have a good day.” 

“It’s Rey,” she reminded him but he was already out the door. She leaned back in her seat and opened the glove compartment to find the cash inside. She held the hundreds up to the light and saw the watermark. They were legit and she was officially five hundred dollars richer.

She couldn’t believe it. And then she looked in the backseat and saw the guy’s, Kylo’s, wallet sitting there.

Shit.

She leaned back and grabbed it, getting out of her car. She looked, he was halfway across the street. She could get it to him before the light changed. 

Kylo had a lot on his mind. He had to charge his phone. He had to shower. He had to get into the office as soon as possible. He wasn’t late, not yet, but he would be if he didn’t hurry. He had a lot to work on. There was the investment meeting for First Order Manufacturing. There was the business lunch with Amilyn Holdo who was building her portfolio and checking the funding for her senate run. He had to get his suit dry cleaned, God knows what was in that Honda Civic or who had been in it. 

He had to…

“Rich Guy!” He heard the Uber driver, Rey, yell and he stopped. A dead stop in the middle of a New York City street, as the light changed. 

He thought he heard, “Your wallet,” but it was drowned out by the sound of a bus loudly honking. 

He turned and thought, Fuck. He was going to have to get a new suit. 

  
And then the bus hit him. The tires squealed. He went under. His bones broke and then reforged and he was pulling himself up on the other side of the stopped bus. 

Rey watched it all happen. Watched him go under. Watched him get up. 

She couldn’t shut her eyes, she could just watch the train wreck or rather, the crash, happen before her. The crash that wasn’t a crash because he was fine. He was standing up and he was brushing himself off and he looked like he was mildly annoyed, but a part of her thought that may have just been his face. 

It was like the whole thing was just some kind of minor inconvenience rather than the horror show it actually was.

Rey gripped the wallet. She saw him look at her, almost take a step towards her but the bus driver got out and ran over to him. She blinked, she knew what she saw, but how had she seen it? How was he okay?

Kylo knew he was going to have to convince this guy that everything was fine, that he had missed him, good reflexes the usual excuse when these things sometimes happened.

But when he knew Rey, the driver, was another thing entirely. He wasn’t sure how much she had seen but from the pale look to her, he knew it was a lot more than the driver. He took a step towards her, rising to his full height, brushing off some of the asphalt that had dusted up onto his coat.

The bus driver stopped him from moving, and before Kylo could say ‘I’m fine’ and move on, Rey was in her car and speeding down the street. Far away from him. Far away from what had happened.

He hoped he would make it to work on time.

  * To be continued - 




	3. The Dead Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey stole a wallet and then realizes she has to return it to the guy who probably should be dead. Said guy, Kylo Ren has to interview assistants and he's not happy about it, but he's not happy about anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy my word vomit.

**Chapter Two - “The Dead Man”**

Finn and Rose sat across from each other at the little cafe down the street from New Republic Studios in Brooklyn. Finn had made his interview and had done shockingly well despite his constant apologizing for being three minutes late. 

Jessika Pava in HR kept reminding him it was perfectly fine while also telling him based on his resume this was more of a formality than an actual interview and that no he hadn’t fucked anything up. Still, Finn’s nervous energy kept up during the course of the questions and answers until eventually Jessika just handed the papers over to him to sign.

Finn had of course accepted and was now the newest production assistant at New Republic Studios in the gaming department. He knew it would be long hours and a lot of work, primarily pulling cables and working with motion capture, but he was getting health insurance, dental insurance, vision, and the promise of moving up within a year. 

He couldn’t have been happier. He called Troopers after stepping outside New Republic and quit immediately. Rose had taken him out to lunch once she was done fixing one of the computers in editing.

And now Finn’s nervous energy had returned. He couldn’t keep his hands still, one occasionally continuously going to the pocket of his jacket. When the waiter had come to ask them for their order, Finn had rushed out something that sounded like grilled cheese but the closest thing the cafe actually had to a grilled cheese was some kind of panini which Finn had left untouched since it had arrived on their table.

“Okay, what’s wrong with you?” Rose asked, the sweat starting to form on Finn’s forehead.

“You know I love you.”

“Oh God,” Rose knew what was coming and she knew this wasn’t the right place, not for him, not for her. “Finn, look I know we’ve talked about this.”

“Wait, I know, you said no public proposals but it’s kind of perfect, right? We met working together and now we’re going to work together again and we’re a good team and we work well and this can be our place and we can come here on anniversaries and…” he was rambling, he knew he was rambling and Rose softened at his sweet sweet face and words. She didn’t want to be that couple that did the whole public proposal and got free cake from the place but if that was how this was going to play out then so be it. Besides, the cafe had good cake.

Finn pulled the ring from his pocket, about to get down on one knee when…

Rey stormed into the cafe, looking much paler than usual, her hand gripping a nice leather wallet and her eyes wide like some kind of dolls.

“Rey?” Finn asked as she walked in. 

There were only two chairs at their table and Rey - very loudly - grabbed one from another table and dragged it over to them before sitting down. Rose had ordered mimosas for her and Finn to celebrate and Rey drank both of them without taking a breath. 

“Peanut? Are you okay?” Finn asked and even if he and Rose were a little annoyed at the moment being interrupted, one look at Rey’s face had them both feeling sympathy. What had happened?   
  


“My fare got hit by a bus after he got out of my car,” Rey said in a monotonous, shocked voice. 

“Oh my God,” Rose said for the second time since being in the cafe.

“Did he die?” Finn asked and Rose half heartedly slapped him on the arm. 

“He got hit by a bus, Finn, I don’t think he just got up and danced away.”

“But he did though,” Rey said, “He got up. Like full on just popped up like nothing happened,” Rey said matter of fact, her eyes still wide as she stared at Rose.

“That’s not possible,” Finn said, “Maybe you didn’t see…”

“Yeah, Rey, maybe you just thought he got hit but he didn’t.” 

“No, he got hit, Rose! He was dead, he was call the Undertaker because dude’s about to Rest in Peace, dead!” The cafe around them fell silent. Rose and Finn looked around and smiled awkwardly to the people around them. Finn made a drinking gesture which Rey gave him a withering look for. 

They returned to the conversation, the cafe returning to it’s lunch crowd, but Rey continued, her voice lowering, “But he got up. He kicked out at two and he was up, I don’t know how it’s possible and…” she seemed to notice what was in her hand now, “Oh my God I took his wallet.”

“You stole his wallet!” 

“You watched him die and you took his wallet!” Both Finn and Rose yelled at her at nearly the same time. Then Finn put his head in his hands. 

“You have to return it,” Finn said and Rey shook her head.

“To the not dead dead guy?!” 

“Rey,” Finn started but she was on a tangent. 

“Finn, I’m telling you he was dead, he was under the wheels, he was…”

“Jakku!” Finn shouted and Rey fell silent. Jakku was the safe word, it was the town where they had met when they were kids, the foster home where they had joined up and become more than friends, had become family. Jakku meant shut-up, Jakku meant it’s my turn to be selfish, Jakku meant I’m doing something important and it isn’t about you and I need you to understand. Jakku meant they were going to fight and then they were going to hug it out later. 

“What?” Rey stopped and Finn nodded towards the outside of the cafe. Rey followed silently as they walked out leaving Rose to very quietly order two more mimosas from their waiter. 

Once outside the cafe Finn took a breath and Rey knew he was mad.

“Finn, listen, I’m sorry I didn’t ask about the interview but I was…” 

“This isn’t about the interview, I got the job by the way, but this isn’t about that. Do you know what I was about to do? What I was trying to do? For the love of God you were there when I picked out the ring. You knew how important today was going to be.”

Rey shrunk back, she did know, she had known, but she had been thrown off by everything. Rose telling her she was worried, Rey trying not to think about the truth in Rose’s words, her own fears that yes, she might be stuck, yes, she might never truly reach that idea of adulthood, yes, everyone around her was moving on and moving forward and she was just there, but she didn’t want to say it aloud, and also the guy Kylo Ren had been run over by a bus and that had definitely thrown the rest of the day off balance.

“Finn, I’m telling you, the guy got hit by a bus.”

“Jakku!” He yelled again, “Jakku, Jakku, Jakku!” He threw his hands up as he screamed, some people on the street turned to glance at them which was actually shocking for New York. 

Finn took a breath and steadied his hands, “This isn’t about the bus or the guy who definitely wasn’t hit by it if he was perfectly fine or the fact that you stole his wallet, Rey! This is about me trying to ask Rose to marry me and you not letting me do it! Why won’t you let me do it?!”

“Because I forgot!”

“You forgot! Right! Because if it’s not about anything to do with you, you don’t listen and you don’t care! Sometimes you can be so selfish!”

“I’m selfish?! Me?! I’m sorry I don’t remember you clearing it with me before Rose started basically living with us! I don’t remember you warning me that maybe you’d want to move out and I might be stuck paying my own rent! But if you think I’m holding you back, Finn, just say it and why don’t you stay at Rose’s place tonight instead of ours, start dropping that dead weight you clearly think I am. Congrats on the job by the way.”

“Rey!” 

  
  


But she was walking away before she could say another word. She knew it wasn’t true but it felt true in the moment, her own irrational fears and feelings taking over as she left Finn on the street. 

Finn thought about running after her, telling her she wasn’t dead weight, but he knew better than to follow or confront. Rey needed to work things out on her own, had to cool off before they could talk it out and find the root of the problem. Finn had been a scared kid and when they had met. Rey had been only worrying about herself, had been hungry a lot more than she had been fed and would horde food and not talk. They had a nice foster family in Jakku and Finn had adjusted a lot easier than she had until some neighborhood kid had bullied him and Rey had punched him square in the face. Talking with her fists than with her actual words. 

So Finn knew better than to chase her down when she was this kind of angry. He didn’t want to get punched because she would and had thrown punches when she was pissed, when she was feeling vulnerable, when she didn’t want to talk about what was really bothering her. 

So he went back into the cafe and told Rose he’d be staying with her tonight and had salvaged the moment by getting down on one knee in front of the patrons in the cafe and asking her to marry him.

She had said yes even if the moment felt rushed and forced and a little off after the fiasco inside and out. 

\--- 

Rey was on a mission, both to prove that the not quite dead guy had actually been a figment of her imagination and that she wasn’t the disaster Finn and Rose thought she was without actually telling her she was.

She held Kylo Ren’s business card in one hand and the wallet in the other as she stood outside the tall high rise of First Order Financial. It was a daunting building, full of well dressed people coming and going, all wearing shoes or watches that cost more than her entire outfit. She swallowed thickly, she wasn’t sure she could even get through the door, they would smell the poor on her.

But she had to return the wallet. She wasn’t a thief. Not much of an adult and an actual disaster and occasional trash scavenger when they needed furniture, yes, but definitely not a thief. She just had to get into the building, she just had to drop off the wallet and go, that was it. She probably didn’t even have to talk to him, she could just leave it at the desk.

But she couldn’t make herself move. She just couldn’t face the task. 

\---

Kylo Ren saw their bright eyed faces and turned back towards the elevator but was too late. Maz had seen him and she was on his heel faster than he could fake a cough.

With promotions came new complications and Maz trying to force him to adhere to company standards like getting a personal assistant.

“Isn’t that what I have you for?” Kylo argued but Maz quickly shut him down, the smaller and much older woman staring him down from behind her glasses in a way that made him feel like he was five years old again.

“I don’t get your laundry or your coffee and I’m not answering the phone at four in the morning when you need the Starkiller file right this moment. You get promoted you get a personal assistant.” She handed him a stack of resumes and he knew this was final. 

“I’m not hiring them,” he said a little too loudly so the potentials could all hear it. They were waiting in their plastic chairs, business graduates and associates, young and bright eyed and ambitious in a way that he couldn’t fault but definitely didn’t want to deal with. 

“Then I’ll keep sending new ones until you do.” She turned on her heel and called the first candidate into his office. He took a seat and saw Hux about to turn down the hall, see the line of candidates and then quickly turn right back around. He had been lucky in his personal assistant. They were scarce, they made themselves scarce, his needs being met without ever having to make small talk. Phasma had vehemently refused to have one, taking matters into her own hands and no one had argued with her. 

Kylo wished he had that luxury. Maz was more mother to him than employee, more mother than his own mother and he hadn’t spoken to her in…he didn’t know how long.

He knew Maz wouldn’t take no for an answer and if she had her way, he was going to get an assistant who would be a lot more hands on and a lot more involved in his everyday life than he wanted anyone to be. And said assistant would report back to Maz as needed, or rather, as she demanded. A brief mental picture of his life blowing up around him made its way in front of his eyes. The Uber driver who may have seen too much was one thing, no one would believe her, but an assistant at a well respected company, an assistant and Maz, and then a crazy Uber driver.

Someone would ask questions. He had to be pragmatic about this, or he could quit and move and live off the large fortune he had amassed over the years. 

He knew he’d get bored too quickly to do that.

He would just have to pick the best worst choice, find an assistant who would be just decent enough at their job, not great, not Maz’s perfect choice, but decent enough to get his coffee order right but not be overly involved in his life or really care to even ask how his weekend went.

He glanced out the glass doors, seeing the line of potentials, none of them had shown up in sneakers or sandals or rolled up sleeves. They barely glanced at their phones. This was going to be difficult.

He took a seat at his desk, his head bowed, defeated as the first candidate came in. Even before they started talking and talking and talking like they were fresh out of an episode of Gilmore Girls, he knew this was going to be a very long day. 

He wished he could go back under the bus. 

\---

Rey stood in the lobby and headed towards the Security desk. She didn’t even need to face the guy and was momentarily relieved. She could just drop the wallet off and go.

But when she reached the desk and the tall Security Guard with a deep rumbling voice and too much hair said “Can I help you?”

“Yeah, I’m here about Kylo Ren…”

“Oh, you’re late, huh?” He handed her a visitor’s log, “And a little underdressed unless that’s the point.” 

She signed her name, “Wait, what? I’m just here for…”

“Elevator on the left, floor 43.” And then the phone was ringing and Rey had no more time to ask a question because the Security Guard was waving her away with a harsh, “Check in with Maz.”

The next thing she knew she was in the elevator on her way to floor 43 wearing a bright red Visitor sticker and the worried expression of someone who was heading to the gallows.

The ride up was long and gave her time to think about riding the elevator all the way back down, arguing with the security guard that she was not here to see Maz and didn’t even know who she was and just leave the wallet and run. But no, she had to see it through, face the vampire or alien or whatever he was because she was an adult dammit and she was brave and so so stupid, this was so stupid. 

It was the last thought she had as the elevator doors dinged and opened and she was staring into a bright and bustling and way too nice office full of well dressed expensive looking people. She stepped out onto the floor as a guy in a suit who looked like he might be crying got into the elevator and said, “Don’t go in there.”

She gripped the wallet tight and turned around, desperately pressing the elevator call button and praying.

“You! Next!” A woman’s voice bellowed and Rey froze, it was too late, she had been spotted.

Rey turned around and faced, rather looked down to face, the short woman with coke bottle glasses who looked like she could stare right through her soul, to the fear underneath.

The woman who Rey presumed was Maz, eyed her outfit up and down and then grabbed Rey’s arm in a light but unyielding grip. There was no room to escape, no room to argue, this was happening.

“I can’t say you dressed for the part but I don’t think it will matter to him, he’s quite difficult to please regardless of qualifications or dress, though you could have put some effort into it.”

“Are you Maz?” Rey asked in a quiet voice and Maz gave her a look.

“If you need to ask that question then this really won’t go well for you, but it can’t go worse than that boy, truth be told I had a bet that he would break into tears while still in the office but I’m glad he at least made it to the elevator. Harvard graduate that one. Did you bring a resume?”

“A resume?”

Maz gave her another scrutinizing and disappointed look that Rey found withering and absolutely devastating in a way that ripped right to the core.

“Good luck,” Maz said, waiting for a name, Rey got the social cue.

“Oh Rey, Rey Johnson.”

Maz nodded and opened a clear glass door with the name Ben Solo III engraved onto it. Rey sighed relieved, she could bomb whatever this interview was and then give the wallet to Maz and get out before ever seeing the dark haired, victorian looking dude who definitely didn’t get hit by a bus and live. 

And then Maz announced, “Rey Johnson,” and ushed Rey into the room and she was face to face with said not dead guy. 

“I thought your name was Kylo Ren,” she said as Maz excused herself from what she thought would be a very short interview.

Kylo froze, staring at the woman from this morning. His unbeating heart would have been pounding in his ears had it worked, but it didn’t and he was far better at remaining calm and collected then he expected this woman to be.

“It’s a professional nickname.”

He gave a controlled smile and nod as Maz shut the door on her way out. Once the door closed, he sighed, cursing his luck, “Because this day couldn’t get any worse. You here for a job?” He glanced at her clothing, she certainly hadn’t dressed for a job interview, not for First Order at least. Did she even know how to be an assistant? She looked like she could barely take care of herself?

“Do I look like I’m here for a job?” Rey asked with a raised eyebrow, staring down Ben or Kylo or whatever he wanted to call himself.

“No, you look like you should be selling merch outside a club somewhere. Who is Becky Lynch? A band?”

“Okay, rude and no, she isn’t, but that’s not the point. The point is you’re looking decidedly well put together for someone who was run over by a bus this morning.” She stared him down, the wallet still gripped tight. He hadn’t seen it yet and he tried to control the reaction her words caused, but she saw it. The way his eyes glanced to the door to make sure no one heard, the way his mouth formed a tight line, and the way his hands flexed on his desk.

“Uber driver…”

“Rey.” She stared him down, this was his office but she was in charge of this conversation and it was off putting, he would have been terrified, if he could still feel things like terror. He wasn’t sure he could. 

He held his hands up, this was his office, but still he tried to placate her, “Okay, Rey. I don’t know what you think you saw given you dropped me off on the other side of traffic.”

“I saw you get hit by a bus and walk away.” She crossed her arms over her chest and that’s when he saw it.

“Is that my wallet? Did you steal my wallet? I paid you five hundred dollars and you stole my wallet.” 

And then Rey was on the defense. 

“No! I tried to return your wallet and they thought I was here for an interview and you got hit by a bus and this isn’t about your wallet this is about you being a vampire!”

“I’m not a vampire!”

“That sounds like something a vampire would say,” Rey argued and punctuated it with a raised eyebrow, check and mate. She would win this argument, she was great at arguments. 

Kylo was momentarily reminded of their murderer conversation and the smile caught him by surprise.

She wasn’t going to leave without the truth, he knew it and she knew it and they both knew what the truth was, well he knew the truth, she had a weird potentially Twilight inspired idea of it.

Rey waited. And waited. And waited for an answer as the silence fell around them. She didn’t find it awkward, just silent. And then she started to get annoyed. All the fear she had mustered up before, all the anxiety, had given way to some kind of frustration that was edging out anything else. She stared at his face, the hooked nose, the dark hair that she strangely wanted to run her hands through because what kind of product did he use? It looked too good to be real. And then she stared at the Ben Solo III name plate on his desk and wondered why he had introduced himself as Kylo and why would he pick such a stupid name? 

Kylo found himself soaking in the silence and thinking. She knew him as Kylo, she knew the name on the door as something else. She was going to keep digging into the truth, she’d probably be capable of a Google search and find all the previous Ben Solo’s with a strikingly similar picture and knew she wouldn’t pass it off as genetic similarities. He knew Maz wasn’t going to stop about the assistant job and he knew he needed someone who would quietly be bad at the job.

Rey cleared her throat, “Dude, you’re going to have to talk at some point I’m not leaving without an answer. Are you having an aneurysm, did you get a concussion?”

The silence broke and the plan hit him like the bus had earlier. She seemed like the type who could keep a secret, who would face someone she thought might be a vampire or a murderer to return a wallet, and she was dressed poorly for the job. It would work out. It was better than trying to bribe someone off the truth. It was almost easier.

“Are you hungry?” He asked, standing up from his chair and buttoning his suit jacket before grabbing the coat. It may have been Spring but there was still a slight chill to the air. 

“I’m sorry what?” Rey asked and then remembered the singular bowl of cereal she had eaten this morning and knew that yes she was in fact hungry. She had some money now though, she could get a bagel. 

“I asked if you were hungry.” He gave her a look, “I think the job is best discussed over lunch.” 

“Job?”

“You’re dressed for a diner so we’ll go there, it’s down the street.” He walked out of his office, going first and letting the door close behind him. Rey had to stop it herself and shook her head. She was starting to hate him a lot more than fear him. 

He expected her to follow and Rey knew she was going to, because she wanted the truth and he knew she wanted the truth and it frustrated her to no end. Nevermind she was still holding his wallet. He didn’t care. He knew he was going to get it back.

“I told you he’d hire her,” Kylo heard Hux whisper as Maz and Phasma handed him money. 

Rey gripped the wallet tighter as the elevator closed behind her and Kylo, unsure as to what was about to happen next. This was a weird day.


	4. Job Offers and Bets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey finds out what exactly Kylo Ren is and gets a shocking job offer in return, also they make a bet because rom com reasons.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As usual this was thrown up onto a page and also let it be noted this takes place in 2018 - so for anyone who follows the wrasslin that means Mania 34 was up and coming in New Orleans where Ronda Rousey was about to have her debut match, Charlotte Flair would take on Asuka for the Smackdown Women's Championship after Asuka won the first ever women's Royal Rumble and the in ring return of Daniel Bryan - that also means that Summerslam was coming to the Barclays Center in Brooklyn which is potential foreshadowing and def not a date that our two baes will definitely not go on.

**Chapter Three - “Job Offers and Bets”**

Kylo was more of an asshole than he had been to her in her car. 

Rey watched as he inspected the table, the silverware, ordered a coffee, black because of course that was how he drank it, and pulled his coat tighter around his very expensive suit like he was trying to block it from touching the plastic of the booth seats.

“If you were just going to scrutinize the place why did you bring me here?” She glanced around, “Unless, wait are you going to take me out back and shoot me? Should I prepare my last meal?”

“For the last time I’m not going to kill you,” Kylo said, a little too loudly. Their waitress paused at their table and placed the soda Rey had ordered much to Kylo’s chagrin. Soda at 10am? Who does that? 

“Are you all set?” She asked, notepad in hand.

Rey hadn’t even needed to look at the menu, she already knew what she was getting. 

“I’m good with the coffee,” Kylo said, then gave Rey a look. 

“I’ll have the short stack of french toast and the breakfast special.”

“The special is three eggs, toast, bacon, and hash browns and it comes with a side of pancakes.” The Waitress paused, her eyes glancing from the well dressed Kylo Ren to Rey in her Becky Lynch sweatshirt, jeans that were starting to rip at the knee and sneakers.

“I know what I’m about,” Rey stated and The Waitress nodded then walked away with the order.

“You want anything else? Dessert? The entire lunch menu?” Kylo asked, the judgement in his tone practically vibrating in his low timbre. 

“We’ll see when I finish eating my brunch.”

“This isn’t brunch. This is breakfast for lunch.”

“Aka Brunch.”

“No, brunch is a pretentious and pricey specialty menu catering to couples and women in their late 20’s who want to pretend they’re in a romantic comedy.”

Rey gave him a look, “I happen to like brunch.”

“No, you don’t.” Kylo stated, taking a sip of his coffee, trying to revel in the warmth and bitterness it held. He wasn’t one to frequent diners, he barely went out to eat anymore even in restaurants that required reservations. It wasn’t that he couldn’t eat, there was no joy in food, not when you were frozen in time so to speak. It lacked taste and joy that it brought to others.

Rey shifted in her seat, uncomfortable at the call out. Kylo was right and judging by the eye contact he didn’t break - he knew he was right too. 

Still, she didn’t give him the satisfaction of vocalizing that correctness instead chugging along to her next question, “So why come here if you hated it?” 

Rey took a loud sip of her soda. She knew it annoyed him. She watched it annoy him. If he was going to be an asshole in the place he chose she could at least get a little payback.

“I don’t hate it specifically, I just hate most public places.”

“Because you’re a vampire,” Rey said with a smirk. He rolled his eyes.

“I’m not a vampire.”

“Then, what are you? Because you’re sure as shit not dead.” The Waitress stopped once again at their table and gave them a curious look. She dropped off the french toast first for Rey and refilled Kylo’s coffee then moved on.

“The truth comes with a clause, an agreement,” Kylo began, his voice steady as he drank more coffee. He raised his brows, gauging her reaction as she absorbed his words, syrup dripping from her fork as she ate another bite of french toast.

“I’m not having sex with you,” she said, half gagging on her food.

He grimaced, “No, oh my God, why do you always think that’s what I’m asking?”

“It’s the pause in between I don’t know you just say it weird.” 

“I don’t say things weird. You misinterpret things,” he scoffed, “No, the truth comes with a job. You have to accept the job I’m offering you and then I can tell you the truth.”

“Because hush money is too complicated?” Rey asked and at that the waitress appeared again to deliver the rest of Rey’s food. She dug into the eggs and Kylo had to calculate how long it had actually taken her to finish the french toast, because it was gone and Rey wasn’t slowing down at the next course of breakfast food.

“Yes, we get it it’s a weird conversation, thank you,” Kylo stated as the waitress walked away.

“Don’t be rude, she’ll spit in your coffee.”

“No one spits in people’s coffee that’s a myth.”

“Sure they don’t,” Rey said with a pointed look as she dipped her toast in the broken yolk of the eggs and ate.

“How can you eat all that?”

Rey shrugged, “How can you eat nothing?”

“I don’t get hungry really.”

“Except for blood,” Rey remarked and Kylo rolled his eyes. She bit into a piece of bacon and made a satisfied humming as she chewed. Growing up in foster care there had never been enough, not usually, sometimes she used to hide food to make up for the bad days. Now, as an adult she had enough, but still, the thought of wondering where her next meal would come from would sometimes slip in and in those moments she often overindulged.

“I’m not a…”

“Vampire, so you say. Then what are you? Why didn’t you die?”

He gave her a pointed look, waiting for her to accept the job offer before continuing. She rolled her eyes and sighed in frustration. He struck her as one of those people that liked to win at things. She liked to win too and she could play the long game far better, she was sure.

“I’m not going to accept a job I know nothing about. And you don’t know anything about me either, I could be a terrible choice for whatever the job is.”

“I know you’re a terrible choice.” He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his broad chest. She tried to not be offended.

“How do you know I’m a terrible choice, I could be a great choice,” she argued, then muttered, “You’re such an asshole.”

“Yeah, I am.” He finished off his coffee, his mind wandering to the cause of his problems - himself. He was an asshole. He had always been an asshole. He would continue to be an asshole. 

And that was the true curse, not the frozen and cracked heart, not the never aging or dying and the loss of feelings, because for years now, since the curse, the feelings he had once felt so strongly in his youth, the good, the bad, and everything in between had been fading. Bazine was right when she said that there would be no Ben Solo. He didn’t even know who Ben Solo was or who he had been. There had only been Kylo Ren.

As if reading his mind Rey asked, “Why do you call yourself Kylo Ren?”

“It’s part of the story that comes with the job,” he said with a smile, “So do you want to hear about it or do you want to tell me about yourself first and then I can tell you about it?”

She put down the half eaten piece of bacon, she was full, truthfully, and the anxiety in her mind from the earlier thought of was it enough hadn’t eased and she couldn’t quite shake it. She eyed the toast, still buttered and waiting on the plate, contemplating it, trying to focus on Kylo Ren, on the conversation and not the darkness swirling in her mind. That selfishness that sometimes took hold, that thing that reeked like loneliness and loss that Finn had been able to shake but she hadn’t. 

“I grew up in foster care, that’s why sometimes I eat more than I should,” she said in a low voice and he nodded, not with pity but understanding. It was a test. He came across as a real dick but this was the test, if he didn’t pry she’d ask about the job, not because she was interested, not because he was winning, but because she knew there was something in there that was some kind of human being with some level of respect. And that was worth something. 

Or so she told herself. 

She hadn’t spoken about foster care to anyone but Finn and even then they really didn’t talk about it, focusing on the now for Rey, or the future for Finn. It had been so long that for the moment Rey felt better because she had spoken the words aloud, felt the relief and finally felt the fullness of her meal and didn’t worry about the next one.

She slid the plate of toast over to Kylo Ren and watched as he glanced from it to her. He nodded again, understanding the gesture as one of trust, and his fingers twitched towards the toast but stopped on the table.

“It wouldn’t...there’s no taste to food for me. That’s why I drink my coffee black because I get some of the bitterness of it, the warmth, but besides that and alcohol, nothing has much flavor or satisfaction.”

“Why?” Rey asked, her bright eyes falling on the dark of his, he froze for a moment, swallowed by their brightness, by their unwarranted - and undeserved - concern. 

He wondered when anyone had last been concerned about him. Maybe his mother but...no he couldn’t go there. He wasn’t worthy of that thought. 

Her hand found his, somehow, across the distance, her fingers landing on top of his, and he saw the confusion cross her face while her fingers turned his hand over, feeling his wrist for a pulse. A pulse she wouldn’t and couldn’t find, because it didn’t exist. 

“It doesn’t beat,” he said sadly.

“How?” She asked, her eyes staring at him, staring through him in a way that was almost as easy as the way Maz could stare through him, or his mother, or his uncle. He shook his head, he couldn’t lose focus, he was not a good man, he was a monster and she should not look at him with such concern or care.

He pulled his wrist out of her hand and readjusted his tie, “You’d be my assistant. I expect you to be able to make a strong coffee and answer phones poorly.”

She sat back in her chair and crossed her arms, “Isn’t that what the receptionist lady did before dragging me into your office?” Rey was momentarily reminded of the large red visitor sticker she still wore. She peeled it off and stuck it onto one of the napkins beside her plate.

“Maz answers phones for the floor, she just thinks I need her help more than the others. You’d be answering the calls she transfers to you, both personal and otherwise, and fielding them when needed. If I get invitations or have to schedule meetings you’ll be doing that too. Normal business hours are 9-6 but I expect you in by no later than 7:45, that’s when I arrive and I expect you to be on call after hours should I need anything, including on weekends. You’ll pick up dry cleaning and mail as needed, but you’ll get a nice salary and we have good insurance, it includes dental and vision. You’ll also get two weeks paid vacation every year, don’t plan to use it.” He pulled back on the cold calculating stare he used in meetings and when he was dealing with business finances. It was how he had secured Snoke’s government run and the eventual creation of First Order. He knew how to wear a mask and wear it well. 

“Oh is that it?” Rey asked, clearly uninterested in the job, “What else do I get? A new car?”

“Do you want a new car? There is room for some negotiation but I’m sure your salary can cover it over time, sell the other one for scrap.”

“I’m not selling my car, I like my car.”

“It’s small and old.”

“It’s mine.”

They fell into another silence, pressing and angry. Rey knew she probably didn’t have much choice in this matter. It was the job, which admittedly would cover her rent and other stuff especially with Finn and Rose moving forward. 

She thought about Finn and Rose, she thought about that whole adulting thing. She had gone to return a wallet and had walked away with a job that allowed her to actually go to the doctor and see a dentist and pay her bills, but what was it going to cost her?

She looked at the man before her, tall, big, reeking with a kind of bitter sadness and darkness she couldn’t fully comprehend and something in her felt that same sense of loneliness she had always struggled with. This dude was a mess, whether he admitted it or not, the way he looked around at the world screamed it for him.

“I’m not wearing any fancy clothes to work and I’m definitely not going to have sex with you.” 

At that moment the Waitress dropped the check off with a, “Whenever you’re ready,” and gave them both a scrutinizing look as if to say, ‘yeah sure,’ in a disbelieving and judgemental tone. A look that both Rey and Kylo missed.

“For the last time that’s not happening, like ever, you are nowhere near my type,” Kylo sounded disgusted and Rey found herself feeling offended.

“You’re not my type either. You look like somebody's caricature or one of Picasso’s paintings come to life.”

“Well at least I don’t look thirteen.” He huffed.

“You’re a dick.”

“Yes, I am. And continuing to be on brand, we should discuss your wardrobe. You have to find something that won’t scream I’m here to ask you about flyers for an open mic night.”

“Oh real nice.”

“It’s the truth. The five hundred, consider it a signing bonus, get something better than that thing you’re wearing.” He eyed her sweatshirt. “Lass kicker? Really?”

She held up a finger, “First of all, if you ever disrespect Becky Lynch in my presence again I’ll punch you in your oversized nose, second of all fine, but I get casual Fridays where I will wear this sweatshirt with the name of a groundbreaking and awesome wrestler. And I’m taking off for Wrestlemania so I can watch it uninterrupted on tv. Now…” Rey trailed off, giving him a look that told him exactly what was expected of him next. He sighed heavily, and knew it was time. Time for the truth. 

“Fine, but we’re walking.” He waited, giving Rey an expectant look.

“What?”

“You still have my wallet.” He held out his hand and she gave him back the wallet she had meant to return nearly an hour ago without a meal involved.

He grabbed the bill and brought it over to the cashier, removing his credit card from the now returned wallet. Rey grabbed her uneaten toast and took it with her as they left the diner.

\---

Kylo told the story, remembering it as if it was yesterday. He spared no details and laid out the story as it had happened, no embellishment and no omission of truth. He mentioned Bazine, he mentioned the things he had done since and how he couldn’t die, though over the years he had certainly tried. 

He told her that too.

Rey listened to the lonely guy tell her his sad story and she felt bad for him, genuinely felt bad. If she knew him better she might offer a hug even though she was not a hugger. That was Finn and Rose, they always wanted to hug her, she didn’t want any part of it.

She felt bad she was still angry with Finn, she felt bad that they had even fought at all. 

She and Kylo walked in silence after the story ended, finding their way to the park. Rey bit into her cold toast and chewed as she thought over everything, mulling over the tale. Despite the obvious insanity of it all, she believed it - the evidence of seeing Kylo get hit by a bus still vivid and hard to ignore. 

“So right out the gate I’m going to say, it’s kind of your fault and I’m like eighty percent on the side of Bazine,” Rey said, some of the crumbs of her toast falling out as she spoke. Kylo nodded, she wasn’t wrong.

Rey continued, “But I also think that you’ve probably done a fair share of penance and also I’m not calling you Kylo to be clear, it’s a stupid name, and I won’t call you Mr. Ren. I will however call you Ben and Mr. Solo at work if necessary.” 

“You’re taking the job.”

“I thought that was why you told me the story, as a condition.”

Kylo was shocked she wasn’t running for the hills, well truth be told she had already done that when he had gotten hit by the bus, but at least she wasn’t screaming now or calling him a monster. He tried to ignore the sound of his name coming from her, like sunlight breaking through the clouds on a dark day. It was the first time his name hadn’t felt foreign, had actually felt like it belonged to him.

“I was just confirming,” he said, his voice fading off at the end, a tremble that had never happened to him before. Rey didn't notice or if she did she didn’t bring attention to it, just kept on talking.

“I have another condition.” She stared at him, then in a resolved and determined way said, “I’m going to help you break this curse thing.” She took another bite of her toast as a punctuation to her demand.

“You can’t.”

“I think I can.”

“I’ve tried.”

“Well not good enough obviously so now I’m helping.” She smiled, it was final, the decision made. He knew there was no arguing. 

“Listen,” she poked him in his chest, right where his unbeating heart was, “Oh that’s firm, listen, that thing in there, your broken little Grinch heart, I’m going to fix it. We’ll find your true love or whatever and, if I heard the curse correctly as you told it, you’ll love them and they’ll love you and boom, fireworks, Disney magic, cue the romantic music because you’re cured.” 

She wasn’t sure where the confidence was coming from. She was a disaster in her romantic entanglements just as much as she was in her professional and general life dealings. Finn and her had given it a shot once upon a time, had been each other’s first, and she had dated one other guy since then, but not for long and it hadn’t gone very well and that was about it. She had no ground to stand on for romantic advice, but she knew she could help Ben, could find the ability to help him. More than she could help herself.

“It’s not going to happen,” he ran a hand through his hair, growing uncomfortable with the new direction the conversation was going. He hadn’t expected her offer of help, he thought she might not believe him despite seeing what had happened, might play it off as some kind of crazy hallucination, but there was something different about her, something that wasn’t scared, something that wanted to help. And it was all genuine. He wasn’t used to genuine. 

“You want to make it a bet?” She smirked as they walked through the park, winter had faded, the trees gaining their color back as March neared April and the smell of flowers swirled around them. 

“Didn’t I already pay you five hundred dollars for a not great Uber ride?”

“Let’s say I do break your little curse, then what?” 

“You would have my able to die gratitude.” She pierced him with a look and he added, “What would you want?”

“I want tickets to Wrestlemania, lower bowl seating, not ringside and not on the side with the cameras because I don’t want to be on TV screaming my head off. And I don’t mean this years because that’s like two weeks away and in New Orleans, I mean next years when it comes to MetLife.” She paused as a kid on a skateboard flew past them. Kylo fixed her with a look.

“Really?” He asked, one eyebrow raised, “That’s your demand? With your new salary you could probably afford tickets and the trip to New Jersey. But whatever, I’ll play, what happens when you lose?”

“Well I won’t lose.”

“Great confidence but bets work both ways. So what do I get?” He tucked his hands in his pants pockets, he was too tall, wearing too much black, a shadow in the bright Springtime park. Rey thought he looked like a shadow of a person, or just a shadow in general. The sun seemed to shine through him rather than on him.

“To be this,” she pointed to him and he tried not to be hurt by it. 

“Not much of a victory. How about free Uber rides for a year?”

“Is it free if you’re still paying me a salary?” 

“Symbolically free.” He shrugged. “Or, you take me to a nice dinner at a nice restaurant that is wildly out of your price range. I’m getting steak.”

“Didn’t you say you can’t really taste food?” Rey asked.

“I never said I would eat the steak, but I’ll still order it and just watch it get cold.” He smiled.

“Now I’m really on Bazine’s side, like full ninety percent. But I guess it’s a deal and not something I have to worry about because I’m definitely going to break this curse.” She held out her hand for him to shake on it.

“Good luck,” he took her small hand in his large one and gave a firm handshake, trying to ignore how small her hand looked in his and how warm it felt against his.

Still, the agreement was struck and there was no turning back now.


	5. Of First Days and Speed Dating

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey has her first day at First Order and she has an idea to solve the whole Kylo Ren curse thing, it goes exactly how we would all expect it to go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't seen The Rise of Skywalker but if you have, or if you haven't, and you want a good ol' Rom Com then lets get to the cliches bay bay!

**Chapter Four - “Of First Days and Speed Dating”**

Rey didn’t tell Finn and Rose about her new job. She felt guilty, normally she told Finn everything, but after their fight she wanted to keep it to herself. He wouldn’t get what she was doing working for a finance firm anyway. He wouldn’t understand why she would willingly go to work for a (stable) regular, so called boring, everyday job, when she had been and still was so against the whole joining the system. 

She could hear him now. Her Uber fare, the dude she had stolen the wallet from, the guy she had claimed to see get hit by a bus, had given her a job? 

Finn would question every bit of her sanity and probably Kylo’s because who in their right mind would hire her? Especially given her track record and her work history and that time she had very much told a customer to fuck off before she had even gotten into the interview at Trooper and then promptly left. Finn had tried to get her the job there, they had a fight back then too, but it had only lasted about a day before he had forgiven her, had understood where she was coming from, or so he had said. 

She wondered if he had just said he had forgiven her to avoid any other conflict, to just move on and let her be whatever she was being despite his worries and objections. 

She glanced at her phone and thought about texting him. Finn would wonder about her boss, would ask nonstop questions, would do a little internet research on the guy and Rey wasn’t sure just claiming to be someone’s grandson was going to throw people off the trail.

Finn especially, who would question, who believed the Keanu Reeves vampire theory, who had a conspiracy theory for every conspiracy theory, he would question Ben Solo existing throughout the past hundred years.

Rose would try to convince him otherwise but would have very real questions of Rey’s new job and employer and then try to offer a job at New Republic and Rey didn’t want a pity handout. Another attempt at Finn trying to put her on the right path according to him. 

She knew she had basically been handed the job at First Order, but it didn’t matter, she had a bet to win. And that was the more important thing. 

She put her phone back in her pocket. She hadn’t seen him, hadn’t spoken to him since the fight. Finn had taken her advice and was staying with Rose. She wasn’t going to apologize to him, because she wasn’t entirely sure what she would even be apologizing for. God forbid she take a selfish for once in her life. And even if that were true, that she had been selfish - she hadn’t - she had been scared and in need of her friend, if there was ever a time to be selfish, it was then.

And Finn hadn’t cared.

Finn was the asshole here, not her.

Or so she told herself as the subway rattled around her. 

She was boxed in with the fellow commuters and it was growing uncomfortable. She missed her car, but she wasn’t going to drive it to work. On one hand she had no idea where she would even park and on the other she didn’t want to pay to park if need be.

So she had taken the subway, in her new business casual clothes, that she hated.

“Miss,” a voice said from the seat across from her. She gave them a confused look and noticed where the commuter’s eyes had fallen. The tag was still on her blouse, a cream colored thing she had picked up at Trooper. It fit nicely. She had gotten a pair of black pants to go with it and some new flats too, along with some other professional outfits and even one dress but she was sure that wasn’t going to be worn. 

She pulled the tag from her blouse and silently thanked the commuter as the Subway made another stop and she realized it was her turn to get off.

It was one thing to drive people around the city and specifically around Manhattan or to and from the airport, it was another thing entirely to now be a part of the hustle and bustle Rey saw outside her car window nearly every day and was never really a part of. It was another thing to have a job that required her to be somewhere on their terms and not her own. It was another thing to now be a part of something and somewhere, when before she was allowed to not be, she was allowed to exist outside of all of it. Sure, she lived in the city, she lived in Queens, but she never really felt at home. Even with Finn, she never really felt like she belonged.

But now she was expected somewhere, she was a part of a place where someone, where Kylo, no Ben, whatever he called himself, would be waiting for her. 

She didn’t like it.

When she walked into First Order Financial, this time dressed a bit more suitably for the place, she was still stopped by security. 

The Security Guard, the same big burly guy with a lot of hair who definitely looked like his heyday had been in the seventies or eighties stopped her. His loud rumbling voice asked, “Can I help you?” And then he recognized Rey, “Oh, you cleaned up, didn’t you?” 

Despite his size and his loud voice, Rey felt at ease. She looked at his nametag but most of it was covered by his beard. She made out the first few letters ‘Chew’ and just decided to call him Chewie. Mr. Chewie. 

Chewie didn’t seem to mind the nickname all that much. Apparently she wasn’t the first one to call him that, nor would she be the last.

“I’ll tell you something, I make sure the nametag is mostly covered on purpose, nicknames are better than real ones, eh?” He gave her a wink and it made her smile, albeit nervously.

“Sorry. First day,” she told him with that same nervous energy. She wasn’t sure what she had to be nervous about, it wasn’t like she was going to get fired. She was pretty sure she could do the worst job in existence and probably get a raise. That was pretty much what Ben, she was only going to call him that, had said. He wanted her because she was going to be bad at the job.

Wait…

That didn’t give her a boost of confidence.

“Then we got to get you set up with a keycard and an ID.” He brought her over to the desk and did just that, she got her picture taken - it had come out slightly more flattering than her driver’s license - and then was handed a lanyard and the fresh ID complete with a keycard that would grant her access to the elevator without needing to be let in.

She got in and took it to floor 43 and mentally practiced how she was going to introduce herself. What was the story? Well, there wasn’t really a story, more of a half truth to her story. She was a former Uber driver, hired to be an assistant, she was looking for something more stable with benefits. She had driven Mr. Solo because she was not calling him Mr. Ren, he had left his wallet in her car and she had dutifully returned it upon which he had offered her a job because she had basically already done it.

It wasn’t that difficult to leave out the part about the bus and the curse and the being wholly unqualified for the job, though she was pretty sure the last thing anyone could smell on her.

The second she stepped out of the elevator she was assaulted by a red haired man in an expensive suit smiling at her. Smiling, much too wide, much too predatory to actually be kind. 

“I can’t believe he actually followed company protocol for once.” The red headed man continued to smile, “Armitage..Hux, executive,” he introduced but from his tone he made it seem like Rey was supposed to know who he was already. 

“Rey Johnson,” she returned in a rush, “I thought business hours started at nine.” She glanced around at the surprisingly busy office for 7:50. 

Hux laughed, “I guess when Kylo followed company policy he made sure he didn’t pick the cream of the crop.” 

“Is that what your parents said after you were born?” Rey asked, giving Hux a smirk. He scowled. 

“I take it back, makes perfect sense now.” And Hux stormed off. Rey heard a laugh to her side and found a tall blonde woman staring her down, holding two cups of coffee.

“Indeed it does. Phasma.” The woman handed Rey both coffees, “They’re both for him, both black, remember that next time.” And with that Phasma walked off. 

And then Maz descended on Rey, her scrutinizing gaze taking in the new outfit. “Better than before,” Maz said taking one of the coffees from Rey. “Make sure you bring me a bagel and the Guard downstairs a donut in the morning, but not every morning, that man’s cholesterol is through the roof. He gets an apple every other day.” Rey nodded and listened, too afraid to interrupt the short woman and try to take the coffee back for Ben. He was supposed to get both. She was already fucking it all up.

Maz lead her through the offices. She showed her the lounge area with the coffee maker that no one used and the fridge that had a sign saying nothing smelly or below ten dollars. The fridge she was not allowed to use because she wouldn’t be on this floor. 

She was told the top floor belonged to the CEO of the company whom no one had actually ever seen in person and she likely wouldn’t either. Then the tour continued on that slightly jarring, fresh out of someone’s gothic fiction, note. 

There was the client waiting area, complete with leather chairs and couches and a small fridge with sparkling water. Rey was guided past Ben’s large office with the glass doors and big desk and important chairs inside, she passed Hux’s smaller office and Phasma’s monochrome and tastefully decorated office that was the same size as Hux’s. 

And then she was brought down a level where the assistants lived. They had their own lounge area, complete with a microwave and no sign on the fridge besides the will be cleaned out on Wednesday’s one. Then she was lead to the cubicles that took up the small space on the floor. 

She found the desk marked ‘Ren’s Assistant’ and Maz explained that even if she had a desk she was likely not going to spend much time at it. She was told when to ask for the lunch order, how to check and change the schedule on her computer, how to log into the computer, and how to operate the phone. 

Maz handed her a work cell phone and told her that it was exclusively for work and to not make any personal calls on it. It was meant for her to be able to be reached at all times. And that was it. She would be given directions as the day went on.

Then Maz took the other coffee from Rey, mentioned that her new boss would need a fresh one in roughly two hours and to make sure it was hot but leave it with Maz, not walk into the office.

“Any advice?” Rey asked.

“Don’t fuck this up, I can’t go through another hiring process,” Maz said with a warning and then walked off. 

Rey sat at her desk and tapped her fingers as other assistants started to file in. She smiled but none of them seemed to pay her much attention, either already starting on their tasks for the day or writing her off before they’d even met her.

She thought she heard one of them whisper to another “I give it a week,” but she didn’t call them out on it. It probably wasn’t in the best interest of her or Ben to make a scene and force him to fire her when she hadn’t even begun her research.

She heard a ding and checked her phone but realized it wasn’t hers but rather the new company issued one. 

It was a message from Kylo Ren. She made a mental note to change his name in her contacts as she opened the message. 

**Coffee - two hours.**

She stared at it and wondered if this was actually worth it. She sent back a thumbs up emoji and pulled the Red Bull from her messenger bag and cracked it open. 

The phone dinged again. She checked it.

**No emojis. Be professional.**

So rolled her eyes and wrote back. 

**K.**

She smirked as she took a sip of her Red Bull.

“You know those are really bad for you, right?” A man’s voice asked from beside the cubicle. Rey turned and found herself looking right at the pearly whites of potentially one of the most good looking dudes she had ever seen. 

He wore a nice suit, but not on the same level of fancy as the people upstairs, and his short, dark hair was nicely combed. His shoes were polished but the worn leather jacket he held in his hands told a different story. She imagined he probably had a motorcycle somewhere. Maybe he had even driven it here.

Rey smiled despite herself, he had a warm air about him, inviting in all the best ways. “Yeah well, it’s this or dying of global warming so.” She grimaced at her own fatalist humor then tipped the Red Bull to him and took another long sip.

“Poe Dameron, Ron’s driver.” He held out his hand and Rey stood from her chair to shake it. 

“Rey Johnson, new assistant. Ron?”

“It’s what I call him. His name is so stupid.”

“Oh my God, so stupid.” She found herself laughing with Poe Dameron, driver. “So you’re the guy who wouldn’t pick him up from Queens.”

Poe gave her a curious look, “I was at my niece’s Christening. And he told you that?”

“I’m the Uber driver who got him from Queens to Manhattan and then got a job,” she said, the story flowing easily, adding a shrug at the end for good benefit.

“Must have been a Hell of a drive. You know I once got through the Van Wyck in under twenty.”

“No way,” Rey said in disbelief. She couldn’t do that, not from JFK, not to JFK even if there was no traffic. 

“Yeah, I did it. Kyle Ron made his flight to Japan and I got a nice couple days off from his bullshit so if you ever need a ride, I got you. I mean I’m obligated to take you because you’re his assistant hence the introduction but if there’s ever a time where you need to make a mad dash to the airport and neither one of us is on the clock, I got you.” Poe gave her another smile that Rey could practically feel the warmth of. It briefly made her think of Finn, of his warmth, and her smile faded.

“Thanks. I’ll be sure to take you up on it,” she said. 

“Well, I’m off to get a client for their meeting with Kylo, if you get time for lunch, I can give you the run down on our boss.” 

She nodded, went to say more when the company cell dinged again. She went to check it, he waved and then was heading away from the cubicle. 

She spun in her chair as she checked the message from her boss. 

**No one word responses either.**

She wrote back:

**It was a one letter response, technically.**

She found herself smiling and her heart seized with fear. She thought of all the reasons she should walk out the door. This wasn’t her. This wasn’t her life. This wasn’t what she was meant to do. She didn’t know what she was meant to do, but it wasn’t this.

Her phone dinged, the message popped up:

**None of those either. Professional!**

**Oh my God, did you add an exclamation mark? Who are you?**

**I have a meeting.**

**I know I can see it on your calendar.**

**Coffee - Two hours.**

**Copy, Boss. I’m gonna work on that other project.**

She thought of the bet. She thought about winning tickets to Mania for next year. Next year, where it would be held legitimately across the river at MetLife. She briefly thought of Finn again, of their yearly tv watching ritual. He and Rose would humor her, would watch with her even if they didn’t understand any of it. They’d have snacks, they’d laugh as Rey yelled at the tv, they’d have fun. 

She wasn’t sure that was going to happen in a couple of weeks. Not for this years. She wasn’t sure if it would happen next year either, if she won, would they get tickets too. Technically, she had only asked for her own. Maybe Ben and whoever is true love turned out to be would go. Could she be friends with him? She didn’t think so.

Either way, she wasn’t going to find out by sitting at her desk waiting for a coffee run. 

She opened the new company phone and thought about it for a moment. Maz had said it was for company use only and company use would be what it would be for. 

She made a call to Rose who was talking to her even if Finn was decidedly not at the moment and, after a couple of minutes of trying to ignore Rose’s pleas to just make up, Rose had connected Rey to her sister, Paige.

Rey looked at her computer and made her first addition to Ben’s schedule.

\---

The notification of a schedule additon popped up on his phone and Kylo had to pause before the words, ‘what the fuck,’ actually escaped his mouth. He was meeting with the Calrissian estate as they discussed the best way to divide and conquer their long term stocks in order to grow profits and Lando Calrissian had been overspending on luxuries he frankly couldn’t afford if he wanted the business to continue.

Lando had been arguing. Kylo had a headache and desperately wanted his second coffee. It should have arrived two minutes ago.

It hadn’t.

Rey was already starting off on the wrong foot. He wasn’t going to yell at her if she dropped calls or if he didn’t get his mail, but the coffee, the one thing he could actually semi-taste and enjoy, that was a problem. 

And also  _ this _ was now a problem. The schedule additon. This brand new wrench in his well established routine of slowly and carefully extracting himself from the world around him. This he might yell at her for. Because what the fuck? 

Speed dating. She had signed him up for speed dating. 

In what, if any, ass backwards world, did Kylo Ren belong anywhere near speed dating? 

Dating wasn’t his problem. It had never been his problem, until it had inadvertently gotten him cursed, but that wasn’t the point. Although, it hadn’t really been dating, no, the thought needed to be boxed up and shut down, he wasn’t going on this tangent inside his head. It felt like the text exchange with Rey, like arguing round in circles until you were completely off topic. 

Lando kept arguing about write offs and needing to impress clients until Kylo finally stood up and said, “Look either you drop the ridiculous spending or we drop you and then where will you go? Talk to your accountants they’ll confirm what I’m saying, you don’t have much of a portfolio to expand if you keep going this way. Have a good day.”

The meeting ended with Lando calling him an asshole and leaving but it wasn’t soon enough for Kylo’s liking. He had a bone to pick with his new assistant and found himself doing something he didn’t think he would. Openly communicating to the point that he actually requested to see her.

**My office. Immediately.**

His phone dinged and he looked at her response.

**Getting your coffee, its super busy here.**

He groaned then typed, his fingers moving furiously, his ears reddening as something like anger began to take hold in him, something rising from deep in his stomach, making him warm, makng him tense. 

**Too late now. Meeting is over. Get back here, now. Come right to my office. We need to have a discussion.**

The message from her arrived not a second later. 

**Never too late for coffee, boss dude. I just got it, on my way back.**

There was an infuriating smiling emoji attached and Kylo threw his phone across his office. He could imagine her smirk, her satisfied stupid smirk as she sent that and he was ready to fire her, ready to give up the whole thing. 

His hand curled into a fist and there was a white hot flash of pain as he slammed his fist down onto his desk. And then he froze. 

His hand shook as he realized the fact that he had actually felt something like frustration and anger, had felt pain, had actually felt to the point of reaction. He was so alarmed by it that he didn’t hear his door open or turn to see Rey standing beside his now open door, fresh coffee in hand. The anger dissipating, fading, like a storm in summer, leaving as quickly as it had arrived.

“Did you break your phone?” Rey asked as he turned to her. He straightened up and ran his hand through his hair, swallowing down whatever had just happened to him. He forgot about firing her, forgot about everything, except for the change in his schedule.

“Speed dating? Are you serious?” He asked, taking a seat at his desk, his voice somehow still measured despite the chaos of a second ago. Rey remained by the door, one hand holding out the paper coffee cup but her feet never taking her any closer.

“What are you doing?” He stared at her, his prepared speech about needing her to cancel the schedule change, coming to a complete halt. 

“Maz said I wasn’t supposed to come into your office, like ever.” She shrugged. He waved her in and stared at Maz, who looked into the office and then smiled as she answered her ringing phone.

“She’s just messing with you. Don’t come in here when I’m not in here, but do come in here when you bring me coffee and when I have to yell at you about something.” Rey did, shutting the door behind her and taking a seat across from the desk. 

He sipped the black coffee, tasting the rich bitterness and heat, then he stared daggers at Rey. The coldness in his eyes trying to break her. “I’m not doing it.”

“Just give it a shot,” Rey argued. “In good nature of the bet.” 

“Good nature? Have you ever been in an actual bet? There’s nothing good natured about it.”

“I mean I had a Flair chop bet with my friend Finn and that was definitely good natured, even when I chopped him.”

He stared at her, an eyebrow shooting up, the vein above his left eye beginning to throb, was he getting a headache now? He glanced at the hand he had hit his desk with, flexed the fingers, there was no pain anymore. He responded, “I don’t understand any of the words you just said to me.” 

“A Flair chop bet is…”

“I’m not asking.”

Rey fell silent, waiting, like someone called to the Principal’s office for the next hammer to fall. “Am I fired?” 

Kylo sighed, “No, but I’m not going, so cancel my spot, take it off the schedule.”

She fixed him with a look, “You have to go, it’s run by my friend Rose’s sister, Paige and she’s like really good at what she does. I’m talking ninety nine percent of the couples she’s set up got married and stayed married which is the real kicker. She’s real exclusive too, I had to drop your name. Ben Solo, not the stupid fake one and she penciled you in like it was nobody’s business.”

He swallowed thickly. His name, his real name, crossing that bridge of loneliness to fill the space between them. It did something. It sparked something he was afraid to look into. That same spark that had occurred a moment ago, a spark of anger before, but this time it was something else, something warmer. He took another sip of his coffee and he could swear it tasted stronger, tasted better than it ever had before. 

It was gone a moment later, “That’s great for her, I’m not doing it. My problem is not finding women to date, Rey.”

She stood from her chair and he knew he was in for it now, “But it is. You don’t date. You don’t do anything past the one night stand thing, and that’s your problem. You need to connect to someone like not physically connect, you know what I mean.”

“I can do that in a bar.”

“Okay so why haven’t you?” 

He fell silent and Rey bristled, she had won, he knew it, and she knew it. 

He was going whether he liked it or not. Still, she dug the knife in deeper, “It’s something different. I’m not saying it’s going to work but it’s something to try. So will you just try, please?” She gave him a doe eyed stare and he sunk back in his chair, resigned to his fate.

Then, she added, almost under her breath but not quite enough for him not to hear it, “Also there’s a major cancellation fee.”

He sighed, “Fine, but I’m going to complain the whole time.” He took another long sip from his coffee, it didn’t taste as good as it had a second ago, and watched Rey’s face as it brightened with a smile. He waved her away, “Now get out of here, Maz’ll yell at you if she sees you in here and then the other assistants will start asking if they can go in offices, it’ll be anarchy.” 

And with that Rey hurried out thinking she might actually be good at the whole assistant thing even if this was definitely not what she was hired to do.

\---

He hated it the second they walked in the door. 

Well, he hated it before they had arrived to the restaurant where Tico Matchmaking Services was holding one of its illustrious events, but he well and truly hated it the second they had arrived. He was fixed with a much too bright smile at check in and given a nametag with his actual given name on it. 

Ben Solo. 

He stared at it and felt cold. He wasn’t Ben. He didn’t want anyone to know him as Ben, to introduce themselves to Ben. He wasn’t Ben. He didn’t even want Rey to call him Ben. 

“Everything okay with the tag, Mr. Solo?” Paige Tico, owner and self-appointed matchmaking extraordinaire, asked upon noticing his frozen hesitation. She wore very high heels and a dress that accented her legs. Ben would have been interested in any other occasion. She had a wedding ring and he knew not to pursue it, knew that much better now than he had in his youth. 

He looked at Paige, about to tear into her as to what she should address him as, as he had done many times before, sometimes with his fists when Snoke had demanded.

He felt Rey put a small hand on his arm, stopping him as she looked at the tag, “Looks just fine to me. Right, Ben?”

She gave him a satisfied smirk of a smile and he wanted to wipe it from her face. He would wipe it from her face.

He looked from the tag to Rey and back again. He straightened up and plastered on his finest fake smile, the charming kind he used to get women into bed and to get clients to fall in line or sign their wealth and put his company in charge.

“I’ll need one for Rey here too,” he said to Paige. She looked flabbergasted, her expression freezing in a way that implied this wasn’t how things were done. Rey’s expression was even better. Gone was the smile, replaced with big eyes and an open, shocked mouth, he tried not to enjoy it too much.

Paige fixed Rey with a pointed stare, coldly stating, “It’s out of her price range.”

He didn’t appreciate the way she spoke both directly to and about Rey, but this wasn’t about defending Rey. This was about the opposite of defending Rey. This was about making Rey just as uncomfortable as he was going to be. If he had to suffer, Rey was going to have to suffer too. And he would be lying if he said he wouldn’t enjoy it a little bit. 

Rey tried to laugh off the slight from Paige, eyes and mouth returning to their normal size and position, “Yeah, it’s definitely too rich in here for my blood so, I’ll be back in an hour.” She patted Ben on the shoulder like someone dropping their kid off for Kindergarten.

He grabbed her by the wrist, not too hard, but enough to stop her. “No, no, if I’m going to take a chance then I think you should get a chance too. Regardless of your financial situation.” He turned to Paige and put on his sad smile and soulful eyes, “It’s been difficult for me to find someone who I can connect with, as myself, and I’d really like a friend by my side.”

“She said she was your assistant over the phone,” Paige pointed out. 

“Assistant, friend, what’s the difference?” He shrugged.

“Usually you don’t pay someone to be your friend,” Rey muttered, but he moved the arm from around her wrist to wrap around her shoulders, pulling her close, a little too close. She tried to move away, but he held her tight, and she relaxed, relented, into the hold. Realizing he was too strong and she was going nowhere.

“But you pay for your friends,” he said in a low voice, almost too low. It practically rumbled against her. Rey swallowed, her throat drying at the tone, mixed with the feel of his arm around her, she almost lost herself in it, if only for a moment. She shook it off as Ben removed his wallet and dropped his black Amex card on the podium. “This should cover it.” 

Paige smiled, taking the card without a moment's hesitation, “Yes it definitely should, I’ll just run this and we can get Rey all set up.” 

Paige walked away and Rey looked up at Ben, fixing him with a harsh and terrifyingly angry stare. A real smile bubbled up from within him and faded when he realized he still had his arm around her, her warmth radiating into him. She wasn’t trying to pull away, she didn’t even look all that uncomfortable, at least not like she had a second ago.

She wasn’t. He was surprisingly warm for a cursed guy and a part of her wanted to bury herself closer, to fall into the muscle of his chest and just sleep there. But she didn’t. This was not her place. She was not the one.

They both tried to ignore the fact that they were decidedly not uncomfortable with the contact before awkwardly disentangling themselves from each other. 

Ben smoothed out his suit jacket, then snarked, “It’s an hour.”

Rey smacked him in the chest, lightly. If they weren’t in public he was pretty sure it would have been harder. She probably would have given him one of those Flair chops she had mentioned. He made a mental note to look it up later. 

“You’re such a dick, Ben.”

“I’ll be sure to add that to my nametag.”

He picked up a marker and crossed out ‘Ben Solo’ and wrote Kylo Ren. Rey rolled her eyes as Paige returned with a nametag for her and a sheet where they could write potential second date’s names for themselves.

\---

The whole thing felt significantly longer than an hour. 

They were allowed two drinks of some very weak champagne and Kylo Ren had already gotten through his second one before minute ten.

He was stuck, listening to a high powered attorney talking about her achievements and talking about herself and just talking faster than he’d ever heard anyone speak in his life. It felt like white noise at one point and he found himself fading from the moment, staring at another table where Rey currently looked like she was trying very hard not to punch the blonde guy across from her. He smirked and imagined the clenched fist underneath the table. She had two empty champagne glasses next to her and he knew she had tapped the two drink max as well.

He returned to the woman across from him, still going strong with the talking, he wondered if she had even taken a breath during her wordly assault, “Kylo Ren, huh? What kind of name is Kylo Ren? Are you in a band? You know I was in a band in college…”

Mercifully, the timer went off.

“Oh well guess I won’t hear that story,” he feigned disappointment as he watched the blonde guy, whose Rolex shined under the attempted romantic mood lighting, and whose suit was one of those overly polished, I’m a Wall-Street Guy kind, walk away from Rey red faced and pissed off. 

Rey smiled despite herself and the moment and Kylo was sure she had said something that he wasn’t used to hearing from women he was interested in.

“Okay, we’ve reached the halfway point,” Paige announced.

“Halfway?!” Both Kylo and Rey said at the exact same time from their respective sides.

Paige ignored them, “We’ll take a five minute second drink break and then get back to it. Remember write those names down for those second dates.”

She gave Rey and Kylo both a withering stare as if to say, ‘you two are the worst at this and please just leave.’

Rey and Kylo found each other by the bar or rather he got to the bar and then the attorney found him before Rey could.

“So about my story, how about I write your name, you write mine and we discuss it over dinner? I pick the restaurant of course, I have a few of them I like to…”

Rey grabbed him by the arm, saved him from whatever was going to happen next, and pulled him towards the entrance. He smiled, unable to resist the added dig, “We’re not staying?”

“Just shut-up and run.”

“So Rey, I think you have to admit Charlotte Flair has been given everything…” The Wall Street guy started, sounding like a guy who wasn’t used to having his opinion disputed. Rey shoved past him as she and Ben fled, not turning back as he collided with a plant and Paige yelled after them about damages to the venue.

\---

Rey ate the street hot dog in silence as she and Ben walked through the theater district. It was quieter than usual, the shows all in full swing, their audiences enraptured by whatever performance they were seeing.

“How’s your shame dog?” Ben joked, his hands going into his pockets. He felt the weight of the pocket watch still there, still frozen. He hadn’t thought the speed dating thing was going to work, not really, but it seemed Rey had. He had checked it despite himself, praying to whatever was listening that the attorney hadn’t made the thing start ticking.

The spring air was cool but not cold, his sleeves her rolled up and Rey wore his suit jacket like a kind of pain blanket to ease the failure.

He tried to be a balm on the hurt, his voice not quite approaching the sincerity he was hoping for, “Come on, no one actually falls in love at those things. They’re just a waste of money for everyone but Paige.”

Rey continued to stare at the sidewalk ahead, chewing on another bite of her hot dog. He shook his head, “You’re not actually upset about it not working for me, are you?”

“I’m just so sick of so called wrestling fans accusing Charlotte Flair, who has done so much for the business in terms of pushing it forward with the talent to match her name, basically saying she doesn’t deserve title shots. Okay so yeah her dad is Ric Flair but she has pretty much surpassed him or is well on her way, I mean her talent is immeasurable.” Rey’s hands moved wildly as her voice rose an octave in her fury. 

“Holy shit, you don’t care about anyone but yourself and your thoughts,” Ben accused.

Rey froze, turning on him, “Excuse you?” It felt like an echo of Finn, someone telling her how selfish she was, reminding her how broken she was and too afraid to look into and see. 

“I mean here I am trying to console you in your failure and you don’t even care.”

“Console me? You buying me a hot dog and then telling me it’s my failure is what you call consoling?” She threw her hands up, the half eaten hot dog waving in the air. “You don’t care about anyone but yourself either. Oh I’m sad, I’m depressed, I like to fuck women and I’m cursed boo hoo my life is so hard. But yes, I’m a shitty friend, I’m a terrible person.” Her face grew more and more red as her yelling continued.

“You didn’t even care that I didn’t want to do this whole thing. It’s all about you and what you think is best!”

“You don’t care that I’m trying to help!”

“You’re avoiding your own shit.”

“You are too!”

He threw up his own hands, “How?!”

“By not facing it. By being so...this!” She pointed at him with the hot dog.

“A functioning person unlike some people.” He fixed her with a pointed look.

“You really are an ass, no wonder you haven’t broken your stupid curse. You can’t love someone if you don’t care about them and you can’t care about anyone when you’re too caught up in yourself.”

“And you can’t grow up if you’re afraid to face your own shit,” he argued back, the frustration building again, that old friend called anger who he hadn’t heard from since this morning and frankly kind of missed, showing up at the worst time, or best depending on the view point.

“Fuck you,” she stated coldly, “and your hot dog.” And she threw it at him, the mustard landing on his shirt and tie. She walked off, still wearing the suit jacket.

He made a mental note that she would have to take the shirt and tie in for dry cleaning in the morning then said, “Do you want Poe to give you a ride home?”

She flipped him off as she headed for the subway. He noted the jacket would need to go in for dry cleaning as well. Then, he added, “I’ll see you in the morning.”

He ignored the fact that he didn’t really care that she had walked off with his jacket. Ignored the rising thought of what she would look like wearing only that. Ignored the fact that he could smell the mustard on his tie, could taste it as he smelled it, could smell the spring air around him and feel it in his skin.

Ignored the fact that his anger and aggravation wasn’t fading as quickly as it had this morning, was sticking around as if it had come to stay.


	6. Face It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the fight the night before Rey and Ben realize they have to deal with their shit and set some boundaries, but a letter throws a wrench in the machine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's some more garbage - also kind of filler, kind of not, kind of time to queue up Falling Slowly because feelings may be happening.

**Chapter Five - “Face It”**

Ben woke in his penthouse apartment the same as he usually did, the same time as he usually did, staring down the monochromatic, bare walls, and minimalist style of his bedroom, as he always did. 

But he didn’t feel as he always did. 

Because he actually felt something besides empty, besides bitter, besides loneliness. 

He wasn’t cold. His fingertips were a kind of warm that seemed to pulse, except he didn’t have a pulse. 

He placed a hand over his unbeating heart, to confirm it was in fact still not beating. It wasn’t. He was the same.

Except he wasn’t the same.

He checked the watch, hovering at his nightstand, it too went on cracked and frozen, not ticking, not doing anything. Just as it always had.

So why did his gut wrench? Why was he...nervous? Scared? Ashamed? Why was his hand shaking?

He was trying to put the name to the feeling. It wasn’t anger. That had dissipated. It was...an almost kind of sadness.

He felt bad.

He felt guilty. A different kind of guilty, a less powerful guilty, but a type of guilt all the same. He felt sorry. And underneath the sorry, bubbling beneath it, he was still a kind of simmering angry. An anger at being read so truly, at being so called out...and he knew what he felt sorry for. 

His conversation with Rey. His argument with Rey. The whole speed dating debacle that had led to the argument. 

His hands shook, buzzed with something that he couldn’t put a name to. He flexed them in discomfort, it was like when a limb woke back up from sleep, that weird static on a television feeling that accompanied it.

Why did he remember what that felt like? He hadn’t felt that in decades. Why was he feeling it now?

His phone went off and he checked it. A message from Hux regarding the early morning meeting Lando, they had another one and Ben was ready to just cut Lando and go but apparently his words had done something to the philanthropist and he wanted to revisit Ben’s earlier advice. Cut spending where needed, do the best thing for the company. 

Hux would have his assistant draw up paperwork, Ben was to have Rey make the proper copies and so on. 

Rey.

Ben thought about her again and flexed his hand involuntarily, the sensation was almost getting worse.

He wanted to apologize but remembered she had said some things she needed to apologize to him as well, things she was correct about but still hadn’t needed to be said. Or had it? Maybe they both had needed to hear what the other said, maybe that was how this whatever it was, friendship, no, partnership, would always go. There was something about her he knew so well, something he recognized in her that echoed in himself, and it was frankly terrifying how infuriating it all was.

Because there was no hope, no way, that whatever he was could be changed. Yet, she was determined to try. And it was endearing, to him at least, if it also wouldn’t all end so tragically. 

He shut his eyes and flexed his hands again, trying to make the feeling go away, but it wouldn’t and there was something so exciting, so warm about it, so...hopeful.

But he pushed it down. Buried it, deep and remembered his suit.

He sent a message to Rey, told her to be at work on time, to bring the suit in for dry cleaning, including his jacket, and there would be paperwork on her desk that he required no less than seven copies of.

He got up and began to go about his morning routine. Make his coffee, get his suit for the day, go into his very nice bathroom and take his morning shower. 

He turned the water all the way up, the warmth, that would scald others, was just enough for him. The steam filled the room quickly, rising and pluming around him as he stepped in.

And immediately jumped out.

It was too hot.

It...hurt.

“What the fuck,” he whispered, he didn’t feel fear, didn’t feel worry, there was still just the guilt and frustration of the night and day before, really. 

But pain was new. It dulled and left before he could recall what it had actually felt like.

He touched the water again, but it didn’t feel hot anymore, just warm, just barely. 

But his fingers kept tingling, long after it ended. And his coffee tasted rich, tasted bitter, almost too bitter.

He checked his phone, long forgetting the message he had sent to Rey, wondering if he should send an I’m sorry, if they should have any sort of conversation about yesterday, about any of it, about them.

He decided that they needed boundaries. He could call the whole thing off, pay her off, or just let her continue working. He could get her the tickets she wanted and maybe she would stop trying and they could just move the fuck on.

But he wanted to let her have the fun, let her keep trying, maybe it was self serving, he didn’t believe she could actually do it, but a part of him liked having her around even after such a short time. 

For the first time that morning he actually found himself worried she wouldn’t come to work, she would give up, she would cut her losses and run. 

Maybe she should have. And as his fingers hovered over the keys ready to apologize, he got her response and that infuriating anger returned.

**K.**

\---

Rey felt like punching something. The asshole. First he calls her selfish. He says she doesn’t care, he doesn’t even try when she’s trying to help and then he tells her to take the suit in for dry cleaning?

What a dick.

She is his assistant. But still...

He could at least apologize or say something.

But in the short time Rey has known Benjamin Solo she knows he doesn’t apologize and likely never will. So she sent back the one letter response she knew would piss him off, bring him up to her level of aggravation.

She was now 95% on Bazine’s side of all of this. Dude deserved the curse he got.

And then she felt bad for thinking that because he had paid and he had been a little bit right and she was not good at accepting when people were right, even worse when she had to analyze herself to find out why they were right.

Finn had been right. She had purposely forgotten, she had barged in, she had been selfish. And it was only now that she was beginning to figure out the real reason why.

Ben was right about her too, in a way, but he was also wrong, in a lot of other ways. 

She could give up. She could call it quits. She could forget the whole thing, get him his steak or whatever and they could move on. She could go back to driving, go back to her self-made hours and scraping by.

And it would all be as it once was.

But it wouldn’t be, not really, she knew that. She had made a choice, made a bet, made a promise, and she wasn’t going to go back on it. Not even for an asshole like Ben.

She was going to do her job, because it was still her job. To be his assistant, to find him love or whatever that meant, and then they could all move on once the job was done.

She had another idea then, one that would definitely piss him off, but also was way better than speed dating.

She got ready for work, grabbed the suit jacket she had inadvertently stolen from him. It seemed like she was doing that a lot these days - stealing from Ben - it wasn’t intentional but there was definitely a pattern to it.

She braced herself, then headed for the subway, dreading seeing the big emo hulk that was her boss.

But that was a lie, because she didn’t truly dread it. She dreaded the awkward and sure fire fight that they were definitely going to have once she got there, once she set the next idea into motion, but she didn’t dread seeing him.

She tried not to think about that too much, or how it felt to have his arm around her, or how much she’d like to be a lot closer with a lot less clothes and before that thought could well and truly become something she buried it deep, way deep, buried it six feet under and locked the coffin.

He was off limits. Very off limits. So off limits the list was long and varied. It began with the fact that he was her boss, there was a nice bit about how he was an asshole and a dick, and there was also the very important, should be in red and bold faced type, thing about him being cursed until he finds true love and she was definitely not his true love. 

She was just his assistant, just potentially his friend, and that was it. She would guide him onto the path of true love and then she too could move on. To what, to who, probably no one, that didn’t matter and it wasn’t worth spiraling into some kind of existential crisis over. 

She had to get to work.

\---

She didn’t see Ben. He didn’t see her. And a part of it all felt like an avoidance tactic, or they were both actually busy. 

The damaged suit was waiting for her along with the paperwork she immediately made the copies of. She planned on hand delivering them, readying for the inevitable conversation that would follow, regarding the mustard stain as she did. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen that man eat anything with mustard,” Poe Dameron said from the entrance to Rey’s cubicle. She turned and smiled.

“It was my fault.”

“What did you throw it at him?” He asked with a laugh but at Rey’s lack of response, he straightened, his smile growing wider. “You didn’t?”

“I did.”

“He didn’t fire you?”

“I’m still here.” She rifled the papers and went to exit the cubicle, “I’ve got to go make some copies and I have to run some errands after, the car free?”

“That’s why I’m here, he needs you to go to his apartment, a plumber is coming by to check the water temperature.” 

“What? I have to do that? He didn’t tell me that.”

Poe shrugged as she checked the work phone and sure enough there was a message waiting. 

**Poe will bring you to my apartment - don’t touch anything. There is a plumber coming, make sure they do not touch anything besides checking the water. Don’t forget the dry cleaning.**

Rey made the copies and left them with Hux’s assistant. She and Poe dropped off the dry cleaning and the next thing she knew she was standing in a very expensive high rise penthouse and staring at the city like she was above it. She wondered if that’s how Ben felt, above, not a part of, just outside, watching but unable to be a part of it.

The view was breathtaking in a way she couldn’t describe, like something out of a movie. She dropped the keys on a neat stack of mail on the coffee table and worked her way around. Wondering what it was like to live in his apartment, if he even tried to live here.

The large window let in so much natural light she was shocked because inside, even with an open floor plan, the place looked dull and dark. Stark and haunted. It all felt so much like him it was scary.

The living room, with its two couches and a nice coffee table led into a nice kitchen with granite countertops and nice expensive appliances. For a man who didn’t enjoy food he had a good kitchen. She looked in his fridge to find nothing inside save for some water. He had coffee, the beans stored in a nice air tight container on the counter and a very nice coffee maker and grinder, but that was it. She thought about helping herself, even opening the cabinets for snacks but nothing was there. 

She made a mental note to buy some food for him. She knew he wouldn’t eat it, he couldn’t enjoy it, but still, a kitchen without food was sad in a way that couldn’t be articulated into anything better than just the word sad. It was empty. 

She spared a glance into his neat bedroom, the large king sized bed neatly made. She saw a door inside that was slightly ajar and fought down the temptation to look in his closet for all the expensive suits he probably owned and just felt sad for the guy. No pictures, no personal items, just a lonely apartment that looked like a catalogue. 

She didn’t venture further, not towards the bathroom, not into the guest bedroom but she did stop herself at a smaller room - an office. She pushed the door open slightly and gasped when she looked inside.

It was...warm. There were bookshelves and there were books lining them, stacked and organized, reading chairs and a mahogany desk that looked about as old as she imagined Ben might really be.

She went inside despite her better judgement and ran a hand over the desk, over the books, imagined how much time he spent in here. There was a laptop on the desk and next to it his mail, a nice neat stack, a thick cream colored envelope on top.

It hit her then. The apartment - the rest of it - that was what he wanted the world to see, that was the cursed creature stuck in time unable to feel, unable to move forward, unable to be who he really was. It was Kylo Ren. But the office - this room - this was Ben Solo. This was the man beneath the curse, the guy who she wanted to help, who was smart and well read and just as much of a disaster as she was and fought back with every asshole comment he could so as not to be noticed.

She downloaded an app to her work phone and filling in all the information she knew, guessed the rest, and made up some others. It wouldn’t matter once he found his true love if she had lied just a little just to make the idea of him more palatable. 

But when it came time to upload a picture she was stuck - she didn’t have one and she couldn’t find one - not anywhere close. She’d have to talk to him - take one of him.

And as she struggled with that debate the Plumber was done and she met him by the front door.

The plumber from Fett’s told her point blank, “Nothing’s wrong with the temperature. Tell your boss we’ll send him the bill.” 

She thanked him as he left and that was it. She went back to the office, realizing her work phone had been left in there. Once it was retrieved, she couldn’t bring herself to leave just yet. So she sent a message to Ben that there had been no issue, according to the plumber, and expected the response she got but not how infuriated it made her.

**It was way too hot this morning, it’s never too hot.**

**I don’t know what to tell you, nothing’s wrong says the plumber and I’m not going to dig around to find out if he’s wrong or argue with him because I don’t know about plumbing.**

**Of course you’re not.**

**What’s that supposed to mean?**

**You don’t want to do anything difficult.**

**I work for you!**

Her fingers typed furiously as they fought - again. She felt her cheeks flush and she thought about telling him she was going to cook something in his kitchen, but she was sure that would actually get her fired. 

Her phone dinged and she received a very ominous message, the most dreaded:

**We need to talk. Lunch in my office.**

She thought about it for a moment, knowing exactly what he meant and yet unable to resist giving him a bit of a headache to add to the misery. 

**Home office or work office?**

**Get out of my office!**

She took a deep, satisfied breath, she was probably getting fired, this was probably all being taken away and it had nothing to do with the plumber thing and everything to do with her being well, her. She was not meant for a normal life or normal things, she didn’t want to follow the set path, couldn’t because that path had been stolen from her at a young age when she had been left at some orphanage.

Finn followed the path, found it, made it, molded it to what he was supposed to do. And that was when she truly understood his and Rose’s worry for her and why he had been so angry, why she had been so angry, because she was stealing his spot on the path, knocking him off of it, and she didn’t think he should be on it to begin with.

She just didn’t know how to put that into words that he would get, that would make sense. She wasn’t even sure she should or that she wanted to. Reaching out was not her strong suit, neither were apologies. The world didn’t apologize to her for being difficult why should she apologize for how she reacted to it.

She slid a hand over the desk as she left and knocked the mail off the desk, the letters scattering to the floor. She thought about leaving it, about letting him clean up the mess, he deserved it after all. 

But then her eyes fell on that cream colored envelope, the writing too nice to be anything other than an invitation. A wedding invitation? It was bent at the edges, as if he had been holding it, thinking about tearing it and deciding not to.

She saw a name she didn’t recognize on the return address and her curiosity got the better of her. Was it a federal crime to open someone’s mail? Yes, technically, but she was his assistant, what if it was anthrax? She was just doing her job and checking. Besides, she was probably getting fired anyway.

She did not expect the letter that followed, she did not expect to have more questions than answers, and she was pretty sure Ben was going to lose it the second she showed him. Because she had to show him, he hadn’t read it, he needed to read it. He needed to go.

She would make him go, put him on the path he was meant to be on.

\---

He read over the list he had written, his talking points, his expectations and boundaries. A contract more or less. When Rey returned from dealing with the water issue - he would set them in front of her, explain what they meant, have her sign it and things would be much better.

He flexed his hand - that sensation from this morning finally fading. His phone buzzed and he read the message telling him there was nothing wrong with his water. Read it, but couldn’t believe it.

Something had to be wrong with the water, there was no reason it would have gotten hot enough for him to feel it, no reason at all. He wrote his response as he and Rey argued before he finally snapped, telling her to come back to the office, they needed to talk.

This wasn’t going to work. It couldn’t work. He had to get rid of her because a part of him was annoyed she hadn’t come into his office first thing, hadn’t continued the argument, hadn’t told him to go bring his own dry cleaning in. And another part of him knew she was only making things worse for him, making his life more difficult and he didn’t need it to be difficult, he just needed it to be.

He was angry again, a pulsing anger that flooded his system, making his hands tingle again, and he was starting to revel in it. Why was this happening? It couldn’t have been the speed dating, it couldn’t have been the lawyer, but something was happening to him.

Someone was happening to him.

And he couldn’t focus on it enough to overthink it, couldn’t really imagine the possibilities, because it would all lead to nothing, would destroy them both. Because he had tried and he had failed and no one wanted him, no one could love him, because he wasn’t meant to be loved.

She walked in twenty minutes later, carrying a McDonalds bag, annoyed as she marched into his office. He straightened, she was eating McDonalds? In this office? They would string her up. Still, he took a steadying breath, she’d be gone soon, gone after this conversation. It was a mutual parting, the list didn’t matter, none of this mattered.

He pulled back his cold mask, the anger fading, the tingling gone, even the smell of the fries in the bag that had hit him so suddenly was dulled once again.

And then he saw the letter in her hand and he couldn’t speak because the smell of the fries assaulted him so suddenly, so strongly, and his anger was back in full force, so much stronger than it had ever been.

Because how could she? She had been in his office, had gone through his mail, his things, when he had told her not to touch anything. 

“Were you reading my mail?” He asked, shocked that his voice was so measured, so steady, despite the rage boiling. 

The rage that truly was fear. 

She paused as she closed the door behind her, “It fell on the floor.”

“And opened itself?” His voice was rising and she stopped, noticing for the first time, that there was, in fact, something in his eyes that looked angry, that looked scared, that looked like it felt something.

She stepped closer, her eyes locked on his, there was a fire burning in them and she had never seen it before, hadn’t seen real anger, not like the night before, that was frustration, this was anger.

“You’re angry,” she said, not taking her eyes off him as she stepped closer.

“Yes, I’m angry, you went through my things, my apartment water is apparently fine except it…”

“What?” She asked, stepping closer until she was standing across from the desk, still staring.

“Nothing, it’s fine, it doesn’t matter, you went through my office and you took my mail!” His voice trembled as he yelled, a deep rumbling anger cutting through the words, and Rey snapped out of her staring reverie. 

“You’re scared,” she told him, “Of this.” And she dropped the letter on his desk. She sighed, taking a seat, “I opened your mail, my curiosity got the better of me and I’m...I’m sorry.” She ground out the last word like it caused her pain, but it had to be said, she needed to apologize. He blinked and stared at her, taking it in, taking her words in.

“I’m sorry I invaded your privacy, on both counts, last night and this though your words were still uncalled for yesterday, but I figured I was going to be fired anyway, so I read your mail, and again, I’m sorry.”

  
  


“I’m not firing you,” he said suddenly, and that was a shock to both him and her. Then he added, “Yet.” He smirked, “I actually wanted to talk about last night. I think we need to set some boundaries, first being no speed dating because that was terrible.” He hid the contract, the list beneath other papers on his desk. This would not work, not with them. 

“Agreed.”

“And no going forward with the dating life without consulting me.”

She froze and then he stopped, “What did you do?”

She winced, “I may have set up an online dating profile for you. It doesn’t have a picture yet though.”

“Take it down.”

“Ben, you have to try.”

He smirked, “Do or do not, there is no try.”

“The fuck does that mean?” Rey asked, bluntly. His smirk grew.

“Something my uncle said to me once, it doesn’t matter.” 

“Alright well I believe in trying and I’m adding that to the list, you have to try,” she pointed to him and he smacked her hand away, lightly. They both smiled despite themselves.

“You don’t get to add things, this isn’t a joint effort.”

“I should get to add things and in this it is a joint effort.” She took a fry from the bag and ate one, he could smell those fries, he wanted a fry - he didn’t think he had ever wanted a fry.

“Then you also need to try.”

She stopped and sat back in a huff, “Try at what?”

“This job. Life. I don’t know what you’re avoiding.”

“I am trying,” she ate another fry, “At this job at least.”

“Really trying.” He gave her a pointed look and she sighed, giving in. He glanced at the bag as she dropped it on his desk, on his work, and ate another fry.

“I thought you wanted a terrible assistant.”

“Not an obviously terrible one. I think I also need to apologize to you for what I said. I don’t know what you’ve dealt with or haven’t dealt with and I shouldn’t be pushing my own shit onto you.”

“Truth be told, I am being selfish and I’m sort of used to being that way, just relying on myself, doing what I want and getting by how I want or can. I had a fight with my roommate and I’m not even really sure what the whole subtext of it was, I mean I’m kind of getting it now, but I interrupted his proposal.”

“You ruined his proposal?” Ben stopped himself from reaching into the bag as he raised an eyebrow.

“You were hit by a bus and I was reasonably scared and went to tell my friend about it. I forgot that he was proposing.” Rey crossed her arms.

“Because it wasn’t about you,” Ben offered and Rey stared him down but she noticed the way he looked at the bag and wordlessly handed it out to him. He shook his head.

“Come on, best guilty pleasure,” she argued.

“There’s better guilty pleasures. Certain television shows for instance.” 

“Or books.” She gave him a knowing look, trying very hard not to smile as she recalled more than one Danielle Steele novel in his office/library and the twilight series to boot.

“You’re not allowed in my apartment again.”

“Good because it’s definitely haunted.”

“It’s not haunted.”

“Of course it’s haunted, you live there.” She smiled and he found himself reaching for the fry without thinking, taking one, and eating it without a second thought.

And it wasn’t ash in his mouth. It had a taste. There was salt and oil and potato and it was dull but it was there. He could taste it. He swallowed it down and buried his reaction, but could see the way Rey watched him, analyzing, overthinking. 

He shrugged, “Worth a shot,” and then crossed his arms over his chest and tried to ignore the fact that he wanted more.

“Anyway, my roomate and I haven’t spoken since, I tried to explain at the time but, I don’t know, he didn’t want to listen.”

“Maybe because he’s waiting for you to say sorry for ruining his proposal or explain that maybe you’re afraid that he’s moving forward and you aren’t.” Ben stared down at the letter, still in front of him like a gun waiting to go off, and Rey knew his words were coming from some other real place, a similar place. 

His hair fell into his eyes and it took all her willpower not to brush it back, not to keep her hand there, not to ghost her lips across his temple and let him know that he wasn’t alone in this. She took a sip of her drink to soothe the dryness that had suddenly overcome her mouth.

She wanted to argue, knew he was waiting for her to argue, but she didn’t. “Maybe you’re right.”

His head popped up from where he had been staring into the cream color of the envelope. Had she actually said that? He was right? What world was this? He couldn’t believe it. If he had had a beating heart he was sure it would have stopped all over again.

She rolled her eyes as if reading his thoughts, “Yeah I said it, don’t get an ego about it.” The desire to kiss him had all but disappeared and she was grateful for it.

“If it makes you feel any better, I won’t make you delete the profile. I’ll...try. You can even add a picture. And you were right too, I can’t move on or love anyone if I don’t stop hating myself.” He eyed the letter and she handed it over wordlessly.

He knew the handwriting, had gotten one every year, near the anniversary. The invitation was thick in his hands and had been messily put back into the envelope. He gave Rey another look, his fingers twitching as he removed the letter inside. 

“So they’re not dead?” Rey asked, her voice quiet, “Your family?”

He shook his head, “They’re responsible for raising me, they have to pay too,” he said, his voice just as quiet, Bazine hadn’t just cursed him, hadn’t just meant to let him feel the weight of the sins he committed alone. 

No, his family had to suffer just as he had to. And at the beginning he had felt that it was the only justice the curse had delivered and then later had felt he had been cursed twice, to never get the peace of their deaths, but now he knew, they all suffered and that was his fault too. They had raised him but they were not responsible for him, but not in Bazine’s eyes. 

And he hadn’t spoken to them since he had left Ben Solo behind. Had abandoned them to the curse as much as he had resigned himself. They had moved around, they had tried to contribute to the world in their own way, but Ben wouldn’t speak to them, would keep his distance, and they in kind.

His mother kept trying though, kept sending him the invitation year after year. 

“Are you going?” Rey asked as Ben read over the invitation, the anniversary party, or catch up, or whatever his mother wanted to pretend to call it. Family reunion of bullshit. The truth was it was a funeral. It was a blame party. It was a way for them to look at the monster that was their son, their brother, their nephew, and know that he had done this to him.

It wasn’t a family reunion, it wasn’t a way to catch up as they all floated in this eternity of a shithole that was their life. It was the Ben Solo atonement party, that was what his mother wanted, for him to come home, to apologize, to make amends, and he wasn’t going to do it. He never had. He never would.

He was too afraid.

“I never go.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s not healthy. Because they hate me, they have every reason to. Because its my fault they’re stuck too.”

“It’s not dealing with your shit,” Rey gave him a very pointed look and he bristled.

“Neither is not apologizing to your roommate.”

She stared him down and took out her phone, typing quickly, he flexed his hands once again and thought about burning the invitation. And then Rey said, “I just apologized.”

And she showed him the text she had sent, from her personal phone, to Finn, the roommate. He knew he was done for.

“Do you want me to book the flight now or after lunch?” She stared him down, a challenge. She had challenged him before and he would rise to meet it, every time. 

“Make sure you book two tickets. First class.”

“Two tickets? For you and someone you match with on Tinder?” She gave him a wink.

“For you.”

She blanched. “I’m not...I can’t go meet your family.”

“I would think you’d be just tingling with excitement to meet the people who made this thing that I am.” He puffed out his chest and Rey rolled her eyes.

“Don’t call yourself a thing and also I can’t go. It’s the seventh and eighth of April.”

“And that’s your isolation weekend?” He shook his head, “If I’m going, you’re going, I can’t deal with my shit alone.”

She bit back down what she wanted to say. What she would normally have said. It was Wrestlemania weekend, it was the only time Finn and Rose would actually watch wrestling with her, even if they had all been on radio silence for a bit, it would be their reunion party just as much as tradition. They ate snacks, they played games, Finn and Rose rolled their eyes and didn’t understand what Rey got so worked up about, it was fun.

But this year was different. This year there was the Ben Solo complication. And she was trying not to pull a selfish - she was trying to deal with her shit and be better.

Ben was in the same boat, he wouldn’t force her to come with him. He didn’t think he could do this alone but he might be able to try. Trying. He would try. That was the deal. They were both trying whether he believed in doing it or not, it was time to try.

In the past he would have just taken what he wanted, forced people to his will, done whatever. But this wasn’t the past. He had to let the past die. He had to let the old Ben die, the old Kylo Ren, die.

“Look, Rey, you don’t have to, if you have your own stuff, it’s not on you to fix my things with my family,” he winced at his words, they weren’t great, they weren’t pointed or measured, they were just the only words that he thought at the moment. But they got the point across.

She was a goner. She was going with him. She knew it the second he told her she didn’t have to, she knew before, she knew when she had read that letter. 

She hoped wherever his family was that they had wi-fi or a decent tv with wi-fi. She’d have to avoid social media. She’d have to try desperately not to think about what was going to be happening in the world of televised sports entertainment that she wanted to bury herself in and instead, firmly plant herself in the present of whatever was going to be happening at the haunted mansion she was going to.

Finn and Rose wouldn’t care that they were missing it this year. She was just doing what she was supposed to be, like them, she was following her path of life or adulthood or whatever the fuck it was called. They’d get it, she thought, or, Finn wouldn’t accept her apology and it didn’t matter anyway.

At least she was going to get to fly first class. At least she was going to get to fly anywhere.

“Is it haunted?” She asked quietly, with a smirk. 

“No, they built the manor a couple decades ago. It’s in Colorado.”

“Oh good so we’re going to The Overlook. Great. If you try to murder me with a croquet mallet I’m gonna be so pissed,” Rey smiled as she pulled up the flight information, finding two first class seats next to each other because she was terrified of flying and would not be sitting alone.

“I would argue against the whole murder thing but honestly I’m glad and shocked you mentioned the book events and not the movie.” He didn’t realize he had eaten another fry not until after he finished speaking and he paused on the taste, the salt, and fought down the urge to close his eyes and hum in delight.

“Listen, I like them both on their own merits but I prefer the ending of the book.” She wasn’t looking at him, booking the flights with one leg propped up over the other, her soda in one hand, phone in the other. 

He smiled, wide and real and it broke across his face like the sun. She never saw it.

It disappeared the second she said, “Do I need to e-mail your mother that we’re coming?”

“Shit,” he said, he was going to have to explain the whole thing.

Maybe the plane would go down on the way.


	7. The Gargano Story

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey hates flying but introduces Ben to the wonderful world of wrestling entertainment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> High key recommend the match they watch. Also low key this is super not beta'd and I genuinely hope I don't get sued by any licenses of any kind.

**Chapter Six - “The Gargano Story”**

It had been two weeks since the letter and in that time Rey had continued working for Ben. Getting his coffee order, making copies, running errands, and all around making no progress on his love life. It would have been easier to be annoyed by it, but Rey found that she was actually partially enjoying the job she had. It paid nicely, she had made a dentist appointment, and she wasn’t freaking out about the bills. 

But a part of her felt a sense of...something. An anxiety, a fear, that all of it would be taken away, that she would ruin it, that something was going to happen, that once she found Ben love, her job was done and she was gone.

Still, it didn’t stop her from trying. Because that was the deal, they were both doing their best to try. Even Ben had stopped or rather lessened his asshole comments, hadn’t even gone out drinking with Hux and Phasma in a week, hadn’t tried to pick up anyone.

The online dating profile was up and running but there were no takers, even if she worked her way through and swiped on every woman she thought might work for him. They either didn’t match back or Ben veto’d them at the first message.

“Just go out with one!” She had argued.

He had deflected, “They’re boring and uninteresting.”

“You can’t tell that from one message.”

“Yes, I can. I’ve lived a long time, I know how to read people.”

She had been annoyed, but there had been a loaded look that followed and it put her off balance. She found that for the first time, she didn’t know how to argue with him, and she didn’t quite want to. It had been a short time, but she found she actually liked the look, she wanted the look. She didn’t quite know how to process it, how to process all of what she was feeling.

And now she was going away with him for a weekend. A weekend without escape, with him and his cursed family (she was still processing that as well) and no Wrestlemania or NXT Takeover to take her mind off of things. And there had been solid match announcements - ones she didn’t want to miss - but would have to. 

And she was doing it for him. She had never done that for anyone.

Again, she wasn’t quite sure what to make of that fact, or of herself and her messed up feelings.

She swallowed down the growing anxiousness that coiled in her stomach like the need to throw up, just waiting for the inevitable release, and she zipped up her duffel bag. She wasn’t quite sure what to bring or what to expect. Ben had mentioned a nice dinner, a party, so she had packed the one dress she owned and some other better looking clothes, in addition to the usual jeans and wrestling shirt combination - which she had put on another variety of for the plane trip.

Another wave of anxiety clenched her heart and made her throat dry. The plane. She had never flown before. She didn’t know what to expect, she didn’t like the thought of being up in the air, out of control, and even worse the thought of the plane going down.

But she had to temper it. She had to deal with it. She dragged the bag out of her bedroom and prepared herself to face the day.

When she got to the kitchen and living room (they were one room) Finn was sitting by the counter, having taken the day from work to ensure Rey was not actually pulling a ‘Pretty Woman’ as he had so eloquently called it.

It had been shockingly easy for him to accept her apology and for the two of them to get back on speaking terms. When he had learned about her job, she had left out the whole cursed side of things, but did emphasize that she had, in fact, gotten a job, he had been a little shocked, a little proud, but mostly shocked.

Even more so when she had told him not only was her boss the guy who she had stolen the wallet from, but she was going with him to Colorado for a family reunion.

“Are you absolutely sure this is not a weird sacrifice situation? Or like some kind of sex party orgy thing?” Finn asked as he handed her the toiletries bag that had been on the kitchen counter - the last to be packed. 

“It’s not.”

“And you’re okay?” He asked, his concern warm and palpable. She smiled.

“I’m fine, Finn.” 

“I can’t believe you’re actually missing Wrestlemania and not doing the party this year for this guy, your boss. He’s gotta be like Superman or something.”

“Finn, maybe this is just me growing up. Figuring my life out or whatever.” She shrugged, zipping up the worn duffel.

“That’s great but it’s not...you know that’s not what I...when we fought…” he tried to find his words, she knew him too well, he wanted her to grow up, to figure it out because he was scared for her and he didn’t want to always take care of her - whether he could put that into words or not was a different story, but she knew. Knew him all too well, knew his fears, knew his hopes, knew why he was proposing to Rose - the real reason he probably didn’t even know. 

She took a breath, “It’s only a weekend but, maybe you and Rose can have some time, figure it out too.”

“Figure what out?”

“Finn,” she gave him a look, “We have thin walls. It’s been a while.”

He shuffled from foot to foot, “Maybe our relationship is just more than the sex, it’s evolved since the proposal.”

“Has it?” 

He crossed his arms over his chest, “What are you getting at? That I don’t love Rose.” He was getting angry, she didn’t want to fight again, not before she was getting on a plane and could die. 

“No. What I’m getting at is maybe you two just need time to re-aquaint yourselves, knit that relationship back together, with orgasms or whatever.” She patted him on the shoulder, his jaw fell.

“Crass.”

“And proud of it,” she gave him a wink, there was a knock on the door.

“It’s open,” Finn called. 

Poe walked in, his driver’s suit on, smiling, “Ready to go, Personal Assistant from Hell.” He regarded Finn with another smile, holding out his hand, “Poe Dameron, Kylo Ren’s driver.”

“Who’s Kylo Ren?” Finn asked as he shook Poe’s hand. “I thought you said your boss’s name was Ben.”

“It is, it’s a stupid alias.”

“Like for crime?” Finn was still shaking Poe’s hand as he spoke to Rey, not taking his worried eyes away from her.

“This is Finn,” she told Poe.

“Oh good, now that I have a name we can stop shaking hands,” Poe continued to smile, smiling a little wider as Finn dropped their hands.

“Sorry, worry,” Finn said with a shrug.

“Understandable. But trust me, I’m the best driver in the city. I’ll get your girl here to the airport safely, can’t speak for the plane though. I’m kidding, can I take your bags or bag, Rey?” Poe went to pick up the duffel bag.

“Oh I’m not his girl,” Rey corrected.

“Yeah, she’s not,” Finn added almost at the same time she spoke.

Poe perked up, just slight enough for Rey to notice, but Finn was more concerned with his friend to pick it up. “Oh?”

Before Rey or Finn could mention Rose, Ben marched into the apartment, hands in his pockets, tall frame taking up space like a shadow darkening the room.

“Excuse me, we have to make a flight and I’m pretty sure there’s a vagrant child who wants to murder me standing outside that door, so can we go?” Ben pointed towards a small boy in a bright orange shirt staring at him with wide eyes, standing at his door down the hall. He stared at Ben, Ben stared back and then the kid flipped him off before going back into the apartment.

Ben looked to Rey as if she would yell at the kid for him, but she shook her head. 

Poe looked down the hall as the door shut, “Oh I gave that kid five bucks to wash the car once.”

“Why did he wash the car? Why were you here?” 

“It was that day you made Rey come home because she was sick and I had to drive her.”

“I wasn’t sick,” Rey argued.

“You threw up everywhere,” Ben argued back.

“I threw up once.” 

“And again that night,” Finn added.

“You’re not helping,” Rey muttered. 

“Can we please go so I can start this Hell weekend?” Ben said before noticing her bag. 

“Is that your bag?” Ben grimaced, he was being overly moody and Rey knew the real reason why. He was nervous about his family. He was scared about all of it. Worried. He twisted his hands around themselves, she had never seen him do that before, then he smoothed them down his slacks. He wore a nice polo with it, the first time she had ever seen him not in a suit.

“Finn,” Finn tried, holding out his hand but Ben wouldn’t take it.

“Kylo Ren. You the roommate?” He asked.

“You the boss?” Finn asked back, not backing down. “If you murder her…”

“Why does everyone think I’m going to murder you?” Ben asked Rey, throwing his hands up then running them through his hair. “We’re going to be late. I’ll just…” he grabbed Rey’s bag and hauled it down the stairs with him.

Finn, Poe, and Rey stood in the apartment in silence.

“Did he just take your bag? For you?” Poe asked and Rey shrugged. Then, Poe added, “You sure this is just a business weekend? You need me to stop at the store on the way?” He gave her a wink.

She glared at him, “It’s a work event. Idiots.” Then she stalked out of the apartment. Finn caught up to her on the landing.

“Peanut, wait, you have everything?” He asked, concerned. Rey nodded. “Be safe.” And he gave her a hug.

“And you have fun with Rose.” She slapped him on the back and he shook his head.

“Idiot.”

Poe walked with Rey down the stairs towards the main entrance of the apartment building. “So what’s Finn’s deal?”

“Currently unavailable, so calm your dick.” And she walked ahead of him out to the car, where Ben was leaned against the back door, sunglasses on, arms crossed over his chest. She paused for a second, trying desperately not to drink it in.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to stop at the pharmacy on the way?” Poe gave her a smirk and she fought down the urge to smack him as she walked to the car. 

That was the other growing problem, not only were her own feelings getting mixed up, but she was starting to look at Ben, or rather finding it increasingly difficult, not to look at Ben, or imagine him, with less clothing, on top of her, underneath her, and all other manners of things that had her taking a longer shower than usual, her mind running the images while her hand went to work.

She swallowed that thought down, she didn’t like thinking about that moment or moments while she was there looking at him. Even worse, when the weekend was sure to be awkward as is. More so for him, than for her. 

Ben shifted from foot to foot, antsy, ready to be on the plane, ready to get this entire thing over with. They were leaving on a Friday morning and traffic was light, but he was still nervous about missing the plane - a part of him wanting to miss it.

He felt off, uncomfortable, to not be at work, to not be wearing his suit and looking over any financial portfolio of one of his clients. Even worse, he didn’t like this growing nervousness, this anticipation, the feeling that he was walking over the edge of something and just waiting for the fall. 

He had spent so long being muted, being in control of his thoughts, his feelings, or lack thereof, and now that he had been well, feeling, more and more in waves of static and shock, it was starting to get overwhelming, almost painful. 

He was off balance and now he was going to see his family for the first time in a very long time. And he wasn’t sure how he was going to handle it. Or if he could handle it at all.

As he watched Rey get into the car, he briefly felt a moment of peace, at least she would be with him. At least someone normal would be around to help him.

\---

They made it to JFK in plenty of time. Shocking time, Rey thought as Poe pulled into the drop off lane and got out, getting the bags swiftly. She hadn’t been able to make that good of a time when she had been driving, she was a little jealous. 

Rey stared at the airport, so often had she driven people here, watched them fly away off to adventure or business or anywhere that wasn’t here. 

God how she had envied them.

Even when she was in foster care she had never been on a plane, had never traveled further than a couple of states. 

She had dreamed of flying away then too, more than now. Because now she was terrified. Terrified of being trapped in a flying metal coffin that could, at any point, hurtle to the ground and kill her.

“We’ve got an hour, we need to get through security, let’s go.” Ben picked up his bags and walked into the airport. Seemingly unconcerned for the assistant he had practically begged to come with him. Gone was the moment of carrying her bag for her, of the selfless action that he hadn’t thought about. Now, she was back to fending for herself and following after him just as she had been doing at the office. 

“I guess that’s it for me then,” Poe said, handing Rey her bag. “Rey, do me a solid?”

“Finn is unavailable,” Rey began.

Poe shook his head, “No, I respect boundaries I’m not that kind of guy. Listen, don’t fall in love with him.”

She stepped back, “Excuse me?”

“I mean fuck him sure, but don’t fall in love with him. It’ll be bad news for you.”

“I’m not going to fuck him.”

“Why not?” He actually sounded alarmed, “He’s a good looking thirty year old guy, you’re a good looking twenty five year old gal. You’re both straight, attractive and a little bit attracted to each other, don’t even argue because it’s obvious, and going away for the weekend. So get it, but don’t get screwed by it, you know, emotionally.”

Rey remained silent for a minute, listening as a plane flew overhead, the noise buzzing in her head just as much as Poe’s attempt at some kind of weird motivational sex speech. She found her words a moment later.

“Thank you for that interesting speech, uh it’s not gonna happen because he’s my boss, this is a work trip, and I’m not attracted to him despite what you think, but have fun on your weekend off.” She took her bag from him, “I sent you the itinerary for our return, if there’s any delays I’ll text you.”

She gave him a thumbs up as he waved her off while cars honked behind him for him to move.

“I’m saying goodbye to MY FRIEND, calm the fuck down!” Poe screamed as he got into the car, “I’m MOVING!” The New York native accent he tried to hide radiating as he yelled before speeding off.

Rey bit down a laugh and half ran after Ben’s retreating back, swinging the duffel bag over her shoulder as she entered the airport. She wasn’t sure why he was rushing, why he was practically running, she had the boarding passes.

He couldn’t get anywhere without her.

\---

First class was unlike anything Rey had ever experienced. The seats were comfortable and cushioned, there were screens with movies and shows that she didn’t have to pay for and could log into the apps available to her, and free drink and food service. If Rey were taller, she would have enjoyed the extra leg room that Ben seemed to. The two of them were the only ones in their row, limited to two seats, and she sat by the window because the thought of dying in the aisle was worse than the thought of getting sucked out of the window.

Ben drank his coffee in silence as his hands tapped on the arm rest and his leg bounced while the other passengers were let on board. They had been the first to get on and it was good and bad because Rey now had more time to think of all the ways the plane could go down.

“Are you nervous?” Rey asked Ben as the flight attendant closed the door of the plane, her voice rising a little, her heart picking up speed.

Ben stayed silent, lost in thought, remembering all the things he had once said, all that he had done. He had wounded his family in a way he didn’t think he could fix and yet they still wanted him to come home, wanted him to make amends. He wasn’t sure he could even make amends, he wasn’t sure where to start, if he really wanted to start.

Being alone was comfortable, was easier, was the real penance. His self-isolation that he had done for years was better than facing it all. He could get off the plane, he could run, he could feign some kind of illness that forced them to reopen the door and walk off, walk away, never face it again.

But then he knew, he’d truly be lost, there would be no hope and he had been so used to being without it that now that he had found it again, it was a worse thing to lose than before. It would kill him if he lost it again. He knew it. Even if he couldn’t die physically, it would kill him in some worse way.

And he knew it would hurt Rey too. All of it.

“I don’t need to be a part of this family, I’m better than this family,” he had once told his mother. “I’m going to be something. Snoke will see to it.” He had walked out the door and hadn’t looked back and the moment the curse took hold and he had realized tha tall that darkness, all that being a selfish bastard, had taken them too.

“We’re stuck too, kid,” his father had told him, “Just come home, we’ll figure it out together.” His father had tried, even if he too couldn’t go a day without a drink, at least at the beginning, because it was the only thing he could do, he had tried. 

And Ben had become Kylo Ren for good, had shoved his father off the rooftop they had been on. His father had survived the fall of course, they all survived the accidents they had come across from time to time, and Ben hadn’t called, hadn’t apologized, hadn’t done anything to make amends.

Except of course for the time he threw himself off the Empire State Building, had survived the fall, had jumped from the Brooklyn Bridge and survived that, and had performed a series of other death defying attempts that hadn’t led to anything but a little bit of pain until he couldn’t feel that anymore.

The plane had started taxing and if his heart beat it would have been hammering, not because of the flight, because of what would come after they landed, because it would be the first time he had seen his father since the push.

A hand gripped his with such force he was pulled from his thoughts, the pressure actually causing discomfort in the form of pain and he was taken aback before he realized what was happening. He looked at Rey, eyes closed, knuckles white, and turned his hand over to allow her a better grip and return it in kind.

“If the plane goes down I’ll cover you.”

“Thanks but I’m pretty sure that’ll still kill me,” Rey muttered, “Humanity wasn’t meant to fly, the hubris is going to be what does us in.”

Ben tried not to smile, “Rey, it’s going to be fine. You’re way more likely to be hit by a bus than die in a plane crash and I’ve already done that so statistically, you’re good.”

She opened her eyes and glared at him. He pushed a button on her screen, pulled a pair of earbuds from his pocket and handed them to her. She shook her head.

“Just watch some tv we’ll be there before you know it.”

The plane was taking off now, the engine roaring and Rey closed her eyes again, gripping tighter.

“I hate this. I hate this so much. What the fuck is happening.”

“It’s called takeoff, it’s fine.”

They hit a slight patch of turbulence as the plane kept rising and Rey cursed under her breath in a litany of expletives that the woman in front of them turned around.

“First time flying. Keep watching Downton Abbey,” he gave the woman a look and she turned back in her seat.

Eventually the plane leveled out and they were flying at a comfortable 35000 feet and allowed to walk around the cabin. Rey took the earbuds offered to her and found the WWE Network on her screen, ready to be logged into, ready to be enjoyed while she tried to not think about dying in a plane, getting used to it, actually liking looking out the window briefly to see the sky around them and the world below. 

Ben, for his part, didn’t let go of her hand until she was well into watching something and stifling her reactions to it. He smiled, despite himself, and plugged his headphones into his phone and clicked on the music app, shutting his eyes and trying to find some peace before the chaos that would come when they landed.

His thoughts desperately trying not to return to that fateful last day with his family.

And then he heard sniffling beside him, turned to see Rey wiping away a few stray tears and looked on her screen and realized she was still watching a wrestling match - watched some guy in white pants raise a gold belt high and another guy in what looked like underwear with the words ‘Johnny Wrestling’ written on the back, lying in the middle of the ring. 

And Rey was crying.

He pulled down his headphones, “Are you crying? Why are you crying?” 

She pulled out the earbuds, paused what she was watching, NXT Takeover: Philadelphia, the words said after she hit pause. Immediately she was on the defense, angry but not truly angry, more annoyed, more playfully embarrassed mad than actually mad.

“It’s emotional!” She argued.

“How?!” He shot back, pointing at the screen, “It’s fake.”

She smacked his chest, “So are movies and we cry at them! It’s the story!”

“What story?” He asked, her tears were dry now, and she sighed, he bit down another smile.

“The Johnny Gargano story, the comeback, this was the moment. He was going for the title, he had a hard year, he was the underdog, and it just...didn’t happen.”

“So it’s like Rocky?”

“Yes, but better.”

“No, it can’t be better than Rocky.”

“He’s Johnny ‘Freaking’ Wrestling, trust me it’s more emotional than Rocky.”

“Explain.” 

And Rey began, “So Johnny Gargano was in this tag team with his best friend Tommaso Ciampa and then the dude turned on his, straight up stabbed him in the back, more like beat him up but still, turned on him. Then he kept losing and losing until finally he worked his way back to getting a title shot, coming from the lowest of lows to getting his moment, to defeating that demon of failure and here…”

She handed him one earbud, keeping the other in her own ear, and started the entire thing over, “This is the promo package, it explains better, it’s the previously on.”

Ben nodded as it played, giving him the background, and then there were the entrances and then the match began, and together, they watched forty five minutes of one of the most emotional stories Ben had ever seen.

“Holy shit,” he said, several times, as the two guys in the ring, Andrade ‘Cien’ Almas and Johnny Gargano pulled off move after move, pushing and pushing, telling a Rocky story while Andrade’s manager intervened and then Johnny’s wife fought her. 

The way Johnny kept fighting, kept going, even with everything against him, it hit something in him that he couldn’t quite define. 

The whole thing, the whole build up, the mini-movie that was this insane thing he was watching, was unlike anything he had ever seen before.

And he didn’t want it to end. And after it did, he wanted more.

“He lost?!” Ben yelled after it was over, his own emotions taking over, “This was in Philly?! In January?! When’s the next one? Who’s that guy that hit him at the end?”

Rey wanted to laugh, wanted to smile, and then she said, “Tommaso Ciampa.”

“His former friend?!” Ben half yelled, “What happens now?”

“They fight. In New Orleans. Technically right now Johnny isn’t employed by NXT because he did a loser quits match against Andrade on the weekly show but if he beats Tommaso Ciampa in an unsanctioned match he gets his job back.

“When’s that?!”

Rey swallowed, “This weekend. Saturday. Wrestlemania is Sunday and that’s the other brands.”

“Wait I think I went to the first one, or I definitely saw Macho Man one time. I think I went to a party with him. I don’t remember.”

“What?!” Rey asked, “Tell me everything.”

“That is everything. Honestly a lot of years just sort of blend.”

Rey smacked him again.

“Why are you mad now?”

“I’m not mad I’m annoyed. Do you have any idea how much I would pay to have that moment?” She stopped, “It’s fine. But you should know I won’t be watching Takeover or Wrestlemania this weekend and we can do that next weekend after the whole reunion thing.”

“Why? My parents have cable, I’m sure. Or at least, internet. There’s just a Saturday dinner that’s kind of a party thing and then Sunday there’s a family brunch at least if my mother’s schedule is accurate, which it probably is, but rest of Sunday is free as is Saturday night. And our flight is Monday morning.”

“Are you serious?” Rey asked.

He shrugged, “It keeps me from saying something dumb. Plus, I’d kinda like to know what’s gonna happen on this whole Gargano story thing.”

“I’d hug you but I’m afraid to unbuckle my seatbelt. Do you want to watch something else? Oh we should watch Bayley vs Sasha Banks, it’s so good. It’s a couple years old but it’s truly iconic.”

He shrugged, “Whatever you want.”

They picked through different matches, or rather, Rey chose and he watched and listened as she explained background, as she told him who people were, as she made sure he understood why what they were watching mattered.

And then she forgot about her fear of flying and he forgot about his fear of his family.

Until the plane landed and they were back in reality.

As they walked out of the Denver airport, Ben froze. 

A car was waiting for them and his father was in the driver’s seat.


End file.
